And When I Say 'Friend'
by G.E Waldo
Summary: John's new life makes him long for his old and Sherlock's new beau makes John just...jealous! Takes place in a possible future universe after John and Mary's baby has arrived.
1. Chapter 1

" **And When I Say 'Friend'..."**

By GE Waldo

 **Rating** : Mature but with some humour.

 **Pairing** : John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC and eventually Johnlock.

 **Summary** : John's new life makes him long for his old and Sherlock's new beau makes John just...jealous! Takes place in a possible future universe after John and Mary's baby has arrived.

 **Disclaimer** : Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

It was worth the cab fare to get to Baker street all the quicker. John silently drummed his right heel on the floor carpeting, willing the driver to hurry up, though without actually saying a word. He had never mastered the boldness – at least in civilian life – to bark at the anonymous man behind the anonymous wheel to go faster. Particularly when it wasn't the cabbie's fault that the traffic was at a bloody stand-still.

Not like Sherlock who could snap out an order like a general and most people, strangers or not, would usually hop into action in a flurry of flapping arms and gaping mouths, even while they resented him for it. Not that their irritation would serve to slow them down much regardless. Sherlock was nothing if not a stunning Spencer Hart-attired, stylishly coiffed force with which to be reckoned.

John smiled to himself at the reels of memories of Sherlock doing just that. Or the detective leaping over brush, scaling fences, hightailing it down greasy alleyways or simply swirling his great coat around him like batman's' cape with all the flamboyance programmed into his very nature. It was genetic. That unstoppable need for flair. John suspected it was one of the reasons Sherlock kept his hair long. Longish anyway. Longer than was fashionable among his age and class and upbringing.

Yet it suited him. All that swish and swing. Without it he would be ordinary.

Then John chided himself. Not ordinary. _Never_ ordinary. Sherlock could never be that.

So perhaps less incredible? Yes, that. Slightly - though almost not measurably so - less amazing.

John did not let himself think about Sherlock's swish and fling, the sharp expression, the alien looking eyes, skin the colour, well, no colour actually. Smooth with few blemishes other than a few well placed marks or moles. Like white Stilton cheese but without the fruit. Eggshell-white perhaps? Or maybe Devonshire cream. John also refused to turn his thoughts to the balance and lines of Sherlock's lithely muscled form. Yes, it was a lovely shape, as males went, he supposed. But it would not be on to dwell on it. That train left the station a long time ago, Angelo's strategically placed romantic candle not-with-standing.

And that's all. He, John Watson, had a wife and baby and a good job and a high rent and diapers etc, thank you and he loved it all. For the most part.

Nothing is ever perfect.

He loved Sherlock too of course. And Sherlock knew this. Now. Maybe not all the years John had known him but then who loves anyone on sight? Never happens in real life. Nonsense. _Sentiment._

Certainly it never happens to Sherlock Holmes. Of course not. Silly to even consider it. Sherlock had _said_ the word at his wedding and John had been both surprised and pleased by it. So Sherlock understood love. Friend-love, familial, brotherly (although Mycroft was, he had to admit, a bit of a stretch in that regard), but certainly Sherlock loved those closest to him, who had shown him love in return.

But nothing more. The man was asexual. John was certain of it. Pretty certain. Probably. Had to be. Even the beautiful Irene Adler, Sherlock's intellectual equal in almost every way, had been rebuffed by the great sleuth.

So, yes, asexual or the next best - er – thing. Whatever. The Work was Sherlock and Sherlock was the Work.

John loved him of course. Sherlock was his best friend.

John nodded to himself, his thoughts resolved in his mind as they always did, back to the most logical corner of his feeling though stoutly British-and-therefore-we-shall- _not_ -talk-about-these-things-openly heart. Sherlock was just that. A best friend. _What the hell is taking this cabbie so damn long?_

~!~!~!~!~!~

John was late. Close to an hour. Sherlock did not need to glance at the clock above the mantel to know that. John had forgotten about their dinner plans. Or Mary had distracted him. Or the baby. What was her name? Eliza? Lisa? Elise? Cute, as babies went. Blonde of course and of a size and features averaging genetically between her parents. Four months old. Ten fingers and toes. Existing in that bubble in which all babies dwelt for a time; drooling, gurgling and smelling faintly of urine and talcum powder. Mary's brow. John's nose. Mary's shrill vocal chords. John's fierce stubbornness.

John's smile.

This is what happens to people. People like John. They meet someone, they get on, they fall in love (he supposed it was possible), they get married and they get pregnant. And then they get very, very busy.

They get distracted by many things, none of which belong to their former life.

Fifty-seven minutes late. Sherlock took up his phone and pulled up John's number, in-putting a text. Then erasing it. Then in-putting it all over again.

 _Where are you? SH_

 _Backspace-backspace-backspace._

 _John? Meet me at Angelo's instead? SH_

 _Erase-erase-erase!_

 _John - did you forget about me? SH_

 _Backspace-backspace-_ for God's sake!

Sherlock dropped his phone on the arm of his leather and chrome chair and then drumming his fingers. Misses Hudson was 'out with friends.' He had no tea made. There was tea in the cupboard. He kept thinking about it. How good it would taste and he was thirsty. But tea did not appear.

Naturally. He was not _stupid_. You had to _make_ tea. Boiling water, sugar cubes, milk, teabags...in a pot. How many? Six? Eight? Steaming up from his mug into his nostrils. That first aroma so welcoming. And scones with jam and fresh butter. It all sounded lovely.

Sherlock kept thinking about the tea as his mind remembered that John's tea was much better than his. He hated his own tea. The one time he'd made it. He hated making it. He did, when necessary _– hadn't_ he? Once. He was almost _certain_...but anyway it never tasted as good as John's. And John knew how to make a fire in the grate. In moments he'd have a good roar crackling in there. Toasty on a cold night. Much like this one.

He knew how to make a fire too of course, he was a chemist after all, and it was _simple_ chemistry. Pathetically simple. Very. Simple. Chemistry. That and tea making.

Still...

One hour, four minutes late now. Sherlock scooped up his phone and all but leaped from his chair, suddenly needing to move with fury and intent. A snake shedding its skin. The walls had been closing in for the last half hour and he had to shake off this jumble of feelings. Such needless, pointless emotions. Sherlock even felt the itch to shift his shoulders a bit in agreement with the thought. Slough off the human things.

Who needs tea and fires when there's a whole city waiting for him?

Wrapping himself in his Belstaff and winding his scarf around his throat he set off, bounding down the stairs in seconds as he went, sweeping away into the crisp, inky black cold of mid- December. He thought about texting John but what was the point? If John could be here, he would be. He was not. An hour was sufficient time to spend waiting on a man who was obviously not going to show. Sherlock supposed it was not John's fault. As a physician now working full time with a new family to support, John had less free time than most.

Sherlock was not a man to embrace any hint of feeling sorry for himself. On the contrary, he was doing them both a _favour_ by remaining silent on the matter. _Not_ texting John simply meant he would not have to read John's excuses this time as well. It was better this way. They were friends after all. He was doing them both a good turn by _not_ texting with queries as to John's location, activities or why he had stood up his former flat-mate yet again.

This way John did not have to make up any uncomfortable excuses and Sherlock would not be required to indulge them. Perfectly sound reasoning.

~!~!~!~!~

John tossed a few notes at the cabbie and raced up the stairs to 221B, not even using his key as the door to the street had been left unlocked. "Sherlock? You've not been answering my texts. Sorry I'm late. Damn work again. Ready to go?"

All levels of the flat were empty.

"Shit." John took his phone from his front jeans pocket and dialled.

' _This is Sherlock Holmes. If you know me then you know I prefer texting so unless this is an emergency, go away. Or text.'_

"Sherlock. I know I'm over an hour late but could you at least pick up your phone?" _You bloody childish..._

John ended the call and ran fingers through his hair. His one night off in weeks. Now what? He didn't feel like going home. He punched in a new number. "Greg? Yeah, it's me, John. Look, I just wondered –hm? No, no, nothing's wrong -what? Yes," (with a spike of irritation at Lestrade's immediately asking after Sherlock before even saying hello to his former blogger who was the only one of the two who _ever_ made social phone calls to _anyone!)_ "Sherlock's fine, he's good – you haven't seen him, have you? Just - no, me neither. Look, I wanted to ask if – of course I'm not ' _covering_ for him'." _For chrisssake!_ "No-no, I just wondered if you'd like to go for a pint? Right now er – or later this evening maybe. I've a few hours. Yeah? Okay, great. No, Sherlock won't be joining us." _He's off sulking his great twat of an attitude somewhere I hate to guess._ Sherlock in a _pub?_ Lestrade had to be _kidding_! "Meet you at the usual place. Right. Good. See you then."

John ended the call and looked around at the dusty, disorganised clutter. It still called to him as home in a way. Reached put to him like a branch being passed to a man at sea, tossed and turned with every gasp of the wind.

John shook his head at his own sentiment, a feeling he rued and one Sherlock would sneer at. "Christ..." _What's wrong with me?_ But it still felt like maybe a _part_ of him belonged here. Out of habit, John opened the fridge. Nothing that could be called food was present. A plastic tub of ear cartilage sat undisturbed alongside part of a forearm. A litre of milk and a jar of apricot jam. A jar of dill pickles which liquid appeared cloudy and swayed back and forth a bit with every movement of the fridge door. John checked the stamp on the lid. Two months passed date.

Sherlock's lab equipment sat stained on the table. On the worktop his microscope was unplugged from the wall.

With all the mess and the feeling of near-abandonment by its sole occupant, somehow the pace still felt like home. John shook off the nostalgic feeling.

 _Sherlock where the hell are you, you twit?_

~!~!~!~!~!~!~

Sherlock, after passing the welcoming glow of tavern after tavern, and forgoing any door into the lighted, busy interior of Tesco's or other shops at hand, found himself sitting on a cold bench made of steel beside the largely iced-over pond in Regent's Park smoking a cigarette. His sixth of the evening.

It had seemed prudent, at the time, freeing even, to take up the habit again, after John had stopped coming around as often. Even knowing it was bad for his health and might even possibly shorten his life, never-the-less he _liked_ smoking. It sharpened his mind and gave his hands something to do whenever he felt –

Whenever people annoyed him and he needed to get away. It gave him an excuse to leave and go outside for a puff. It made perfect social sense. Even if he was doing it for himself he was also doing it for John. Because John hated it when Sherlock snubbed people or dismissed them or ignored them, or made light of their pain.

So he would go away from them and smoke instead. It made perfect sense, in a way, to pursue the habit. Addiction had nothing to do with it, unless one could call the need to be in a quiet place away from all that emotion and sentiment and noise, an addiction. Then so be it.

It was getting later, well past nine, and there were only a few scattered people using the park. A man with his three Pugs. Sixty-something. Heart problem. Drinker but only recently –ah! -widowed. Still wears his ring. Loved her (or him). No kids so possibly him. Dogs instead of children. Lonely. Walks here every night most likely.

The man passed him with a sad nod while two of his dogs sniffed Sherlock's legs and the thirds tried to pee while walking, it coming out in fits and starts.

Two teenagers walked through across the field farther away. Harder to deduce...oh...walking in a bit of a hurry toward the more popular shops in the area. Dressed warmly so intend to be out for some time. In a hurry in acceptable clothing, yes, but _not_ clothing that would normally be acceptable among their peer group. Talking to each other quietly in urgent whispers, but minds intent on a goal beyond the park. Not even stopping to light up therefore up to no good. Off to do a B&E perhaps yet no large break-in tools though hard to be sure at this distance. Going to rob some poor tourists at knife-point then, the little bastards were.

At least during his years as a less than upstanding citizen he had never resorted to frankly violent crimes. No terrorizing anyone. Stealing, yes. Exchanging one thing for another. Cash for cocaine. Turning fake tricks. Sherlock smiled. A neat device when underage. People were _so_ gullible. Arrange to sleep with a John and demand half the money up front. It was the promise of sex that was the crucial factor. Act like you really want it; like you want them and then, when the time is right and they're emotions are ripe for the plucking, let them find out you're underage and most will panic and run. After demanding their money back of course.

But not getting it. Not all of it anyway. Forty or fifty quid most every time. Easily done.

Most every time the con had worked. Once in a while, unfortunately, it had not worked and he'd ended up with some bruises or marks to hide from Mycroft. But that also had been easily done. Mycroft still did not know about the fake tricks. No one had ever gotten into his pants.

Sherlock found it highly annoying that, while recalling with pride his deviousness, he also felt that same stabbing sense of shame at his youthful indiscretions. The contradiction bothered him. His orderly sense of mind. It was another thing to shake off. Sentiment. Merely the inexperienced machinations of youth.

Nobody was perfect.

A man approached, walking with his dog. A Golden Labrador. Five or six years old. The dog, not the man. The man was young, well, middle aged, a bit older than him. Thicker of body but not over-weight. Not overly tall – one-point-seven-eight or nine meters - but comfortable with it. Physically fit. Well muscled. He worked out. Hair shorn almost to his skull but not receding. So he liked it that way rather than buzzing it in an attempt to hide premature baldness. Interesting.

Tattoos but only a few and discreetly placed. A cross, a name around his left wrist where the sleeve of his coat had ridden up enough for Sherlock to see it. No 'dog-tags' so not military. A small gold chain around his neck. Jacket brand name – Trading Post; Sierra. Not commonly sold in London. He was a foreigner. American most likely.

The tattoo in letters was on the inside of his left wrist and spelled Grace. Not displayed openly so nothing to do with religion. Instead a girl's name. Not a former lover because of its placement. A name just for the man alone to see. A reminder. His daughter. So divorced and the daughter is with the mothe – no, of course the daughter is _dead_. That's why it's hidden. That's why it's just for him. This man does not wear his grief upon his sleeve. This man keeps his grief deeply buried and private. No wedding ring. No mark of one. He's been in country for a while. Mother not in the picture at all. Both dead most likely.

The man sat down on the freezing metal bench, not too closely, to Sherlock. "Evening." He said.

"Good evening." Sherlock said, polite but without much encouragement. He was sufficiently intrigued by the man (his story at least), to not want to immediately leave but not so curious that he wished a lengthy conversation about the weather or other mind-numbing trivia.

"I recognise you from the papers. You're Sherlock Holmes."

Directly to the point thank god. "Yes." Another long drag of his cigarette. The smoke burning in his lungs was glorious.

"You caught that bomber. The one who murdered all those people. Moriarty."

"Yes."

"Did he really come back from the dead?"

Was he obtuse? "No, he really did not."

"Then why..?"

"I saw him die. He is dead beyond repair. We are currently hunting he, or they, who are trying – poorly I might add – to cash in on Moriarty's name."

The man nodded. "The FBI figured he was responsible for bombings in the US too."

Sherlock knew of them of course. Mycroft had held a dossier on Moriarty two inches thick. "They are undoubtedly correct." _Oh_..."Your wife and daughter..?"

The man nodded. "Yes. Six years back. The British consulate in New York."

He had no accent, other than one not British. Sherlock nodded and took another drag.

"My name is Anthony O. Williams." The American stretched out his hand and Sherlock looked down at it for a moment before shaking it. Anthony O. Williams did not let Sherlock's hand go before he said "I'd like to thank you, Mister Holmes, for seeing to the death of that soulless son-of-a-bitch who murdered them."

Sherlock took a few seconds to nod in return while looking at Anthony's other wrist where there was no tattoo and so understood something more. Only the daughter's name. Not the wife's. A divorce, in the past, before their deaths. Well before. Anthony had come to understand sometime into his marriage (after his wife gave birth to their daughter but before their deaths), that he was

"Gay." Sherlock said.

Anthony frowned a bit at the statement, if it could be called that. But he swiftly recovered his aplomb. Again, thought Sherlock, interesting.

"Yes. Yes, I am Mister Holmes." He chuckled a bit at the sleuth's blunt deduction at his expense and then released Sherlock's cold fingers from his warm ones. With a lift of thin eyebrows - "Does it matter?"

Sherlock lifted one corner of his mouth. "No, Mister Williams. Not in the least," he said. "It's fine. It's all fine."

Somewhere, in the far reaches of his mind, Sherlock felt an indefinable _shift_ in his perceptions, as though a door had been shut with a soft resonance. _Click._

Then, startling him with its clarity, an entirely new door opening up and with it the sensation of wind coursing across his mind. He could almost feel the freshness of it.

Sherlock suddenly remembered that this could be what John had often called 'a fresh start'.

~!~!~!~!~

"He wasn't there?" Mary asked. Elicia was wriggling in her arms, kicking her tiny legs with vigor as she sucked contentedly on a bottle of formula. The first of two more she would demand before dawn. It was 11:PM. John watched his infant daughter with a captivated love only a parent can understand. A star sparkled in his heart and it was shaped like a tiny human with turquoise coloured eyes and hair that shone like the stars themselves. He was hopelessly in love with his daughter.

"Well, I was an hour late. An accident tied everything up." His one night out blown all to hell by the careless driving of strangers.

"Why wouldn't he wait for you?"

John knew Mary knew why. What he didn't get was why she needed to ask at all. "You know Sherlock. Impatient. Well, maybe I can find some time on Sunday."

"We're taking Elicia for photos on Sunday."

Right. It was always something. Not that he didn't want photos of his perfect little girl, he did. He most certainly did. But he also wanted to see Sherlock. He hadn't had a good run through darkened streets in the hunt for a killer in months. Sherlock was out there in the dark on his own. "Then maybe the Sunday after next." John said feebly, wondering what else might appear between now and then to upset his tenuous plans. "I'll text him."

Then during a week busier than normal, he simple forgot to.

When the next Sunday rolled around Elicia turned feverish, not dangerously so, but enough to keep Mary home with her, and John stole his chance, slipping away with a quick kiss to Mary's cheek and a softer one to his daughter's over-warm forehead.

He climbed the stairs without knocking as the door had been left unlocked again. Misses Hudson did not like it when Sherlock forgot to lock the door (which was always), or when people showed up without calling first (which Sherlock always did. Even his _parents_ never got a call. Once Sherlock remembered walking in on Mom and Dad's bedroom while they were in the middle of some afternoon sex. Sherlock had explained with horror how it had scarred him, seeing that, not that it altered his habits in the least. He still visited without calling first. John suspected Sherlock made these visits as a fulfillment a promise to his mother, but did not call ahead on the chance that he would happily find his parents not at home. After John learned that Sherlock had been a strapping twenty-seven years old at the time of the sex incident John hadfought the urge to make a call to Mister and Misses Holmes to find out whether or not the tale was true. Being a properly reserved British male, he resisted acting on such an out-of-the-question inquiry of course. Later Mycroft had filled him in (there were times when Mycroft was almost tolerable). It was true.

Sherlock answered his firm knock right away, opening the door and staring at him as though he were some weird apparition. Finally – "John?" sounding thoroughly taken aback. Confused even.

John always called first. Except for today. "I figured I might catch you at home." He announced.

"You have." Sherlock said, still staring. It was then John noticed that Sherlock's shirt was un-tucked from his pressed black pants. It was even a bit wrinkled as though someone had reached out their hand and grabbed a fist full of the lovely material for some reason as yet unknown to the doctor.

John also noticed that he had not yet been invited in. Sherlock must also have come to this realization as he then stepped aside enough that John could shimmy passed him, while the sleuth said at a barely audible level "Um...yes, John.." A small cough. "Please come in."

"Thanks." John turned to find his way to his old chair.

Only to find it occupied by a tall, broad specimen of a man with a broad face, shorn hair, hazel eyes and a curious expression. The stranger smiled and nodded.

Sherlock appeared to John's left elbow and cleared his throat. "Ahem, John, this is Anthony O. Williams. Anthony, this is John Watson my...he was, is...that is we used to be flatmates."

John nearly swallowed his tongue in shock at hearing Sherlock Holmes stumble over words. But he held out his arm for a hand-shake.

Anthony stood to give it a proper go. "Pleased to meet you Mister Watson."

"Doctor," For a reason he could not immediately identify John suddenly felt as urge to assert a modicum of, if not authority, then _position_ over this strange man. "But please just call me John."

"You're Sherlock's blogger as well?" Anthony phrased it as a pseudo question as he retook his seat, obviously unaware that he was sitting in _John's_ chair, but it was clear he already knew.

"Well, I was, yes, but I'm a family man now. Not that much time to spare for the blog I'm afraid." Or for anything else.

Anthony nodded kindly, seating himself again. John glanced at Sherlock who did not appear inclined to sit down, so John took Sherlock's chair, feeling the deep warmth in the seat that the detective's body had left behind. Sherlock's metabolism always had run high and hot.

Sherlock stepped through the archway into the kitchen – which to John's astonishment – had been cleaned. The worktop sparkled, the table was free of beakers and such and the clutter by the fridge had been shoved to one side. When it came to chores for Sherlock it was practically a cleansing purge.

Sherlock was keeping his head turned to the wall behind the stove. "Tea?" Sherlock asked the wall socket.

Both John and Anthony replied in the affirmative. Both with a word of thanks.

John had found himself in some pretty mind bending situations over the years starting with his own upbringing, then through medical school, then Afghanistan and finally working alongside William Sherlock Scott My-Brain-Ought-To-Be-A-National-Treasure _Holmes_ for several years. He had a self-proclaimed sociopath for a former room-mate and best friend (and who would announce a thing like that as a badge of honour as Sherlock did? No one else, that's who), an assassin for a wife and a new baby daughter out of it all who had his heart so well twisted around her teeny and perfect little fingers he may as well be a string of over-cooked spaghetti.

But watching Sherlock make tea while John sat in Sherlock's sitting room with a man named Anthony O. Williams had to take the cake. Sherlock did not make tea. Sherlock never made tea. It was not at all known whether Sherlock knew where the tea container in his own flat was stored.

The resulting concoction Sherlock served to them was enough to make John want to swear off the stuff. If only he wasn't a perfectly hopeless British gentleman who would simply perish without it. After a single herculean sip of the murky beverage he set his cup aside without further venture.

Anthony took a sip and, perhaps not as big a man as John Watson, Captain of the Worst Afghanistan Had on offer, spit it back into his cup. "Um, Sherlock..." He began, and then he looked up and saw Sherlock's expression.

God, the expression on Sherlock's face. Did John ever remember _that_ expression! It was all hound-dog and apology and innocence melded into the sorriest, heart squeezing look you'd never want to beat the tar out of and God strike you down if you did! Anthony looked up at Sherlock who hovered over him staring down at the tea as though it was his greatest triumph of culinary art and how could anyone not like it?

Then Anthony took the nearest appendage belonging to Sherlock Holmes (his left arm), and bringing God's Best of Humanity digits up to his mouth, kissing them with a gentle pucker. The noise was like the pop of a tiny, tiny, _tiny_ champagne bottle. "It was a lovely _thought_ , Sherlock."

Sherlock's expression changed from one of frank hurt at the rejection of his arduously produced tea to one of restrained horror at what Anthony had just done. Except not so much at what Anthony had done because Anthony had done much, much more than that the previous evening and night, but that this time John Watson had witnessed it.

Sherlock remained frozen in place, his body turned toward Anthony, his head turned to John and his eyes...

His eyes looked about ready to pop from his skull and roll away in scout of a good hiding place for the rest of him. "Um, yes, you're...you're welcome."

John shook his head. Sherlock was using his manners. Sherlock was being polite and saying words like _please_ and _you're welcome_. Sherlock was having his fingers _kissed_ by a man John had ever met until today. A man was sitting over there, across from him and he had just kissed Sherlock's fingers in a very intimate way, his lips lingering on them as though they were stalks of tenderly steamed asparagus in delicate lemon butter. As though he really, really liked Sherlock. As though he, Anthony O. Williams knew Sherlock very well. _Very_ well. As one does when one is extremely interested in another. Interested in _them_. In their _body_. As in the _biblical_ sense of the word.

John stared, his mouth gaping open. It seemed an improbable development. Impossible even. Sherlock had someone. A friend that was _not_ John Watson. A friend who had touched Sherlock before and undoubtedly not just on his beautiful white fingers (John tried to block out any images of other parts of Anthony O. Williams touching _his_ Sherlock with _any_ part of his tattooed rock hard flesh!).

William Sherlock Scott Holmes, London's good looking self-labeled sociopath and socially retarded genius sleuth extraordinaire, had a boyfriend!

Somehow during the last several weeks John had completely missed a crucial turning point in Sherlock Holmes' life.

And now Sherlock was using manners and saying...nice things for _no reason at all_ but to be - for God's sake – _polite!_ The universe itself had to be feeling the shockwaves.

John suddenly felt as though his whole world had slipped sideways without his input and he was now standing on a greased slope in bare feet staring down into an abyss, his next step unsure and absolutely out of his control.

What in hell had this man done to _his_ Sherlock?

~!~!~!~!~!~

Next part asap.


	2. Chapter 2b

" **And When I Say 'Friend'..." Part 2**

By GE Waldo

 **Rating** : Mature but with some humour.

 **Pairing** : John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC and eventually Johnlock.

 **Summary** : John's new life makes him long for his old and Sherlock's new beau makes John just...jealous! Takes place in a possible future universe after John and Mary's baby has arrived.

 **Disclaimer** : Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone. _**Only had time for a bit of editing so please be gentle.**_

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH~!~!~!~!~!~!~SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

John took the tube and a bus home sometime after eleven-thirty, his head reeling and feeling not a little guilty at his reaction to Sherlock's new friend (once said friend had excused himself, somewhat hesitantly, and left for the evening). The need to confront, rather than question, had reared its hideous head - once Anthony was out of earshot - and John had not exactly edited his method of inquiry. He groaned at the memory. _I am such a jerk!_

~!~!~

"Who _exactly_ is Anthony O. Williams?"

Once Anthony had left they'd retook their own respective chairs though technically they were both Sherlock's. It was his flat after all. John no longer lived there.

"He's my – a friend." Sherlock sounded defensive. His legs were stiffly crossed and he stared not at John but at the arm of his chair. "Is that so hard to believe? That I have another friend?"

John's open mouth suddenly shut. Realising he had been about to take Sherlock to task for having another friend, a friend who was not him. He had come within seconds of acting like a complete self-indulgent arsehole. "No, no, no. No I am not saying that Sherlock. Of course I'm not saying that. It isn't _hard_ to believe. Of course not." It wasn't as though Sherlock were incapable of making a new friend. He'd made John Watson into a friend quite swiftly. A very dear and close friend without hardly trying. Just by being himself. Of course it wasn't out of the question that such a relationship could occur again between Sherlock and someone else. Sherlock was worth knowing. Very much worth the effort, once you got past his acerbic and brusque manner. Past his surface defenses.

Once you hacked your way through all that stuff, beneath was a person who was, unusual or eccentric – yes but also, on the whole, _good._ Generous, even, in spirit. And generous in other ways also. Willing to go to almost any lengths to protect those he considered closest to him. Sherlock did not withhold kindness so much as employ a rather dramatic way of displaying it.

"Of course you can make friends. I'm-I'm glad."

John felt like a complete fool. Someone else was in Sherlock's life. Someone who obviously liked him well enough to spend some quality time with him. Someone, a man, who could even be well on his way to loving Sherlock, and that was _not_ a bad thing. It was a very, very _good_ thing. Sherlock deserved happiness just as much as anyone did. Sherlock deserved to be loved.

But for the life of him John could not figure out why it distressed him so deeply to watch it happen. "Um, look Sherlock, sorry about my reaction. I think I was taken by. Uh. Surprise. Yeah. Um, that's all."

Sherlock looked at him but did not fail to catch the underlying meaning. "So you _do_ think I am incapable of making another friend?" He stood up and walked around in little, tight circles with his hands in his pockets. He was not agitated but analysing. Deducing. He turned back to John with his eyes narrowed a bit, his head cocked. "Or perhaps you subscribe to my brother's opinion that I am some sort of blushing virgin or...or..." He waved his left hand, all furious fingers, somewhere near his head, a salute that encompassed all things idiotic. And all things Mycroft. "...Something equally ridiculous?"

John took haste to correct any wrong impression he had made (and clearly he'd made a few). "No, Sherlock, as I've just said, I don't think you're incapable. And...um, the other part? Well, it's none of my business. None of my business at all whether you're...you're that. What you said." John however keenly wanted to know and so found himself, against all his better judgement, asking "Um, you don't have to answer of course – none of my business but, if you don't mind me asking, um...are you? You know? _Experienced?"_

Sherlock walked to his desk. His left hand, the one that Anthony had so tenderly kissed, reached out to fiddle with the pens lying there. He was standing behind the desk now. A small retreat. John realised that, sadly, Sherlock felt the need to do just that. _God I am such a bastard_! But he couldn't help it. He wanted to know. He _needed_ to.

"What does it matter?" Sherlock asked sharply, "whether I am or not?" He folded his hands behind his back, another defensive posture; one designed to help him mentally gather himself, insert some distance and superior emotional footing. Softly - " _Why_ does it matter?"

By his response - a question - John knew Sherlock was right. It didn't matter other than if he ever hears whether Anthony O. Williams has hurt Sherlock in _ANY way at all_ , emotionally, mentally or physically, he, former Captain John Watson of the Northumberland Fusiliers, will beat him until he is unrecognisable as a human being.

John also realised that Sherlock's response had indirectly answered his query.

Sherlock was. A virgin. _Sherlock has never been with anyone._ John had to repeat it in his head a few times _. Never. Not anyone. No-one has ever touched him. Not ever._ But it didn't mean Sherlock didn't know anything, John reminded himself; but simply that he had little to no practical experience. And somehow, for reasons John was not willing to examine too closely yet, the idea of Anthony Williams, or any other stranger, giving Sherlock his first 'experience', gutted him.

Then it struck him that he probably had it a bit reversed. Up until very _recently_ Sherlock had never been with anyone. John strongly suspected that was not actually the case any longer. He realised, to his heart's unexpected clenching, that Anthony O. Williams had 'partook'. Of the privilege of Sherlock's body.

"It doesn't matter, I mean it _does -_ "(Of course it mattered. It mattered all to hell and back even though it made no sense that it mattered. Someone other than John loved Sherlock. For John his love for Sherlock was not in _that_ way. Never in _that_ way because they'd never _been_ that. But he was the first to have asked Sherlock out. Back then. Shot down with poise and charm, but shot down. Not that any of _that_ matters either. He was married. He had a baby. His life was good. Not wonderful. Not full of intrigue and danger and nights spent pressed together in some hell hole waiting for a criminal to make a mistake that would finally catch him out and send his sorry ass off to the authorities, but still, good. Someone else loved Sherlock now. And that was good too. Wasn't it? Why, _why_ did it all _bother_ him so much?)"But it's none of my business Sherlock. Sorry. Sorry for being such a nosey Jack."

Sherlock stared at John from behind the desk, finally relaxing his arms so that they hung at his sides. Reaching over he opened his violin case and took out the instrument, idly tuning it by rote as he spoke. "He has been...good to me."

John stopped breathing. "Oh?"

Sherlock was not looking at him. "Yes. Anthony has been quite good to me. Understanding..." Sherlock stole a glance to gauge his friend's reaction to his choice of words. "Patient..." He rosined up his bow. "I find I am..." He placed the bow across the strings. "He - I like him. I am...rather... _fond_."

John made himself take a breath. Sherlock's assurances made his heart pound against his ribcage in protest. All this good news, all this _good_ in Sherlock's life, was making him feel ill. _What the fuck is wrong with me?_

"That's...that's good to know." No. Inexplicably, it was not good to know at all.

"You...you _have_ someone." _Someone who is not me._ Through all those dark nights of the chase, and the days of Sherlock's black depressions and the violin at all hours and the meals taken together and the fun and the worry and the despair when he thought Sherlock had taken his own life – and God the _insurmountable_ _grief!_ – And then Sherlock'd come back and things were so much better but not quite the same but he was alive and still amazing and John loved him. Christ! No, this is all wrong, what was happening here. All right and all wrong too.

"I'm glad Sherlock." When he really wasn't and feeling like a fucking hypocrite because of it. And because he sensed his heart might break apart right there in Sherlock's sitting room.

"You deserve it." Yes. That much is true. His Sherlock deserves to be loved and cared for. John wondered whether Anthony will make tea for Sherlock and sit with him during his black moods and let him steal food from his plate. _He fucking better!_ Sherlock, my...my...my 'friend'?

Was that all he was? No. Christ no. Not even _close_. So much more. So very, very much _more_ did Sherlock mean to him. Suddenly John felt all their shared history, who they were as a pair together, a huge part of who they were to each other – _together_ \- slipping from his grasp. Sherlock falling through his weakened fingers as though his friend were made of sand. The wind was carrying him away. Far away...

 _It should have been me._ "I've got to go."

~!~!~!~!~!~

Sherlock retook his chair once John had, in a bit of a rush, left.

Odd. He should be feeling...no. He didn't _know_ how he should be feeling. But he should be feeling something, shouldn't he? Something other than hollow in his chest area. And a little bit sick.

Yesterday he had felt quite good. Yesterday and last night. The past several days in fact his mood had improved, his outlook had seemed...brighter. He had come to look forward to hearing from Anthony. And then seeing him.

And then last night...

Before John had arrived unannounced...

Anthony had followed him up the stairs to 221B, and had been persuaded to make tea for them. Had sat and chatted about things. Many things. They had even laughed together.

And then Anthony had stood up from John's chair, walked the two steps to where Sherlock sat in his, taken his hands and gently pulled him up and in for a kiss. And then another. And another until Sherlock began returning the affection. It had felt...quite surprisingly pleasurable. Like a present. A sweet offering. Then Anthony had steered them both to the couch, laid down on top of Sherlock and they had spent almost an hour there just kissing each other.

Anthony had then made his kisses deeper and deeper, even sliding his fingers under Sherlock's expensive shirt buttons and undoing them. Exploring his chest and the skin of his back with his strong hands. And then, when the time seemed right for it (and Sherlock had no idea how Anthony had picked up on Sherlock's sudden shift from pleasurably engaged to sparking panic), Anthony had withdrawn his hands and then his lips and smiled down at Sherlock from above.

And then he had re-buttoned his shirt, kissed him once more and then walking to the door as though he were about to leave but not before telling him how much he would like to see him again.

It had come as something new, hearing someone say such things to him. No one had ever said such a phrase, in quite that way, to him before in his life. Not that he could remember.

And Sherlock was suddenly, desperately reluctant to have Anthony walk away without knowing when he might return. So he had suggested meeting for breakfast together the following morning – to which request Anthony had right away agreed - but which conversation John had then derailed.

John had seemed upset with him.

Sherlock perched on the edge of the couch. Tea would go so well with the little bit of contemplation he was planning for the next hour. But his earlier attempt to provide tea for Anthony and John had failed rather completely. Moving to his desk, Sherlock booted up his laptop and typed "Tea Making" into the search engine.

It would not do for Anthony to learn that Sherlock, a genius, could not produce a proper cup of tea when it was merely a set of simple steps. Anthony had provided a very diverting evening of kissing and he deserved a reward for that. Sherlock would make the perfect cup of tea next time!

He was, after all, British.

~!~!~

After leaving 221B John did not get all the way to the tube station before a gleaming black Bentley pulled alongside him and the silent rear window rolled down. John didn't even turn his head. He sighed though. "What do you want Mycroft?"

From within a voice as smooth as caramel pudding answered "Don't be an idiot John."

John stopped walking but did not get in the vehicle. He spoke into the window. "It's always about Sherlock. I meant what _specifically_?"

"And again, don't be an idiot."

"I'm tired. I have to work tomorrow."

John could almost _feel_ Mycroft's right eyebrow peak. "You're saying you _don't_ want to know?"

Of course Mycroft was referring to Sherlock's new love interest. "I'll need a ride home then."

"Naturally."

Without sparring a glance at Mycroft to his left John got in and settled back in the soft leather seat. The car rolled on. "So...tell me he's not a murderer at least."

"If he was, do you think I'd have allowed him to set foot in Sherlock's dreary little flat?"

"You might," John replied coolly, "if it served your interests."

Mycroft sighed. "It was _one_ mistake John."

John laughed. A single scornful yip. "One mistake? You handed Sherlock over to Moriarty on a platter."

Another weary sigh. "Surely I can be forgiven a single misjudgment in forty-five years."

"So he's forgiven you then?"

Mycroft was silent for a few seconds. "Think as you like but I care about what happens to Sherlock as much as you do. He's merely your former flat-mate but he is my brother."

"Sometimes you just make that hard to believe."

Quietly - "I love my brother, Doctor Watson, and that is why I am having this new person in his life vetted as we speak. If there are any skeletons in Anthony _Orest_ Williams' closet, they will be brought to light."

Weird middle name. "Of course they will. And what if he's not a murderer or working for some criminal gang? What if he doesn't meet with your approval in some other, more ordinary way? What if he's not well bred? Or likes to bet on the ponies..?"

Instead of answering directly, Mycroft mused "Tell me, John, you appeared a trifle upset when you left Sherlock's door? Was there something about Sherlock's relationship with this man thus far that has... _unsettled_ you?"

John set his jaw so hard it ached. "No."

"Mmm...I see. And what if this man is simply trying to, as the expression goes, 'get into my brother's pants' - what then? Shall we let him?"

"Don't try and draw me into your petty power struggles with your brother. If Anthony turns out to be a good man then I'm happy for Sherlock."

"And suppose he turns out to be a man who is, on the whole, good but dabbles in, say, drugs? What will you do then? Turn a blind eye?"

"Of course not. I'd talk to Sherlock – _respectfully_."

"Ah. And if he refused to stop seeing such a man? A man who could lead him back down that road to self destruction?" The question turned out to be rhetorical because Mycroft kept talking. "You see, John, it's not my brother's convictions I question, it's his _judgement_. He could all too easily find himself fallen back into ill-advised habits and once again struggling for sobriety."

Finally John looked over at the elder Holmes brother with his eyes suddenly sharp and his words angry. "Why are you so quick to assume Sherlock will make the wrong choice?"

"Because he's lonely." Mycroft said softly.

The elder Holmes brother turned to stare out his window at the street lights and other traffic. To remove himself as he must from his next words. So he could speak them without hesitation. "You think I want Sherlock to be like me; aloof, solitary? _I_ am content with my own company but we both know Sherlock is not like me. I knew that by the time he was two years old. Sherlock craved attention. He needed it - _thrived_ on it. But he's been alone, save for a few years with you as a flat-mate, since before Uni." Mycroft glanced down at his hands folded in his lap and John noted for the first time since getting in the car that they were fidgeting, restless. Mycroft was worried. "Through his school years...I wonder if you can imagine that intelligence – that _difference_ – and how it forced him to withdraw. People distrust what they don't understand. And they hate to be exposed as inferior. Sherlock could have done things differently had he understood _how_. Unfortunately..."

Mycroft sighed softly then cleared his throat, his own emotions once more meticulously shut down, and the memories ruthlessly set aside. "But be that as it may, he's been alone a long time, John. I taught him how to survive that loneliness. By the time I realised it was the wrong lesson it was too late to undo the damage I'd caused. And he embraced his segregation from that moment on. He made the disastrous choice to enshrine his obvious _difference_ from others in order to shield himself from his own isolation."

And then in a moment of rare and brutal honesty "It broke my heart to see it. It might surprise you to know that Sherlock does not do well alone. On the contrary he loves to be loved. He just doesn't know the first step in attaining it."

"First of all no, it would not surprise me. And, secondly, I think he does understand."

"What?"

"How to love."

"In the broader sense perhaps. Big sacrifices - big splashes of selflessness. The drama to feed the tabloids and the speeches in his honor once he's slipped out of earshot. But when was the last time you witnessed Sherlock seeking out affection? Of _any_ kind?"

John had to admit he couldn't remember a single instance. "So what are you saying Mycroft? That this thing with Anthony is bound to fail?"

"No, I'm merely speaking of the possible difficulties ahead. If Anthony is quality, if he comes to understand how to love my brother, how he _must_ , only then I shall bestow my blessing."

John cringed internally. Mycroft _had_ to know he was speaking as though he were Sherlock's _father_ rather than his older brother. "'How he 'must'? And how is that?"

"Without reservation. Without jumping ship when things get difficult which they are bound to do. This _is_ Sherlock Holmes of whom we speak. Thus far in Sherlock's life, no one has stuck by him; none has worn that badge of distinction." A fractional pause - "Except of course for you."

"I assume you're telling me all this because you want me to keep an eye on him?"

"Not at all. I want you to be prepared."

"Prepared for what?"

"For the day when – or if - Sherlock drives Anthony away."

"Sherlock's a grownup Mycroft."

Mycroft laughed very softly. "I'm sure you don't really think so." The car rolled to a perfectly smooth stop.

John saw that they had arrived at his home. To the home he shared with Mary and his daughter. For a change Mycroft did not have any parting words and John couldn't think of any to offer. But he was curious and leaned back in the car's dark interior. It had begun to rain. "Has Sherlock _never_ had anyone - I mean when he was in Uni or -?"

Mycroft continued to stare out his window. "Goodnight Doctor Watson."

~!~!~!~

"Double murder. Looks a bit weird. Will you come?"

Lestrade calling after midnight. Sherlock was up anyway. No point in going to sleep when your mind won't stop rehashing every word Anthony had spoken to him that day, and every word Sherlock managed to articulate in response without sounding like a primary school, stuttering love-sick idiot.

Plus there were all of John's words in there too, circling Anthony's like one wolf circling another, using words like predators used exposed fangs. At least it had seemed that way.

"Oi? Will you come?" Lestrade's voice in his ear again.

He should call John. That's exactly what he would have done two years ago. But it was not two years ago it was now and John was home in bed beside his wife and their daughter sleeping in the crib beside them or in the next room. John left only an hour ago, just after Anthony.

Sherlock hurried to his bedroom with his phone still to his ear. "Yes. I'll meet you there in thirty minutes." And hung up. Letting his wrinkled dress shirt slip from his shoulders and shimmying out of his black wool trousers, he located some respectably pressed alternates and swiftly donned them with practised speed.

Grabbing his coat and scarf – it was cold out – he pressed another set of numbers on his phone. These were not yet programmed into his calling list which consisted of exactly five names:

# 1 – John Watson

#2 – Greg Lestrade

#3 – Martha Hudson

#4 –Mycroft Holmes (Which name he loathed to have to have input but who had unfortunately become something of a necessity these last two years. He'd still be in Serbia otherwise. Maybe. Probably not. He was **Sherlock Holmes** after all).

#5 – Bart's (where Molly worked).

#6 - Possible Anthony O. Williams (not decided yet)

His usual food take-away establishments did not get a listing on his phone because they weren't important enough (besides he had them all memorized anyway). He had all the numbers of the five people on his list memorized too but when one has the option on one's phone to input a number's list, it ought to be utilized. So one ought to put in a few numbers.

He and Anthony, Anthony and Sherlock, _them_ , whatever it – _they_ – were, was - in the vernacular he'd often heard over the years - 'still new'. It was not yet time to have Anthony on speed-dial. Sherlock was certain of it. Pretty sure anyway. It's what everybody did. It's what he'd read. He had the site bookmarked on his laptop. He knew all the pertinent advice by heart. He and Anthony had been 'seeing each other' (all these ridiculous idioms! Why can't people simply say what they mean?) for too short a time for Sherlock to have Anthony in his phone list. Because what if he put it there and then something happened to ruin everything? What if Anthony decided he didn't like Sherlock after all? What if Sherlock (and he knew this as a distinct possibility) did something, or said something, awful enough to drive him away?

No. No, this was best. But he still had Anthony's number of course. Memorized it that first meeting in the park. Hadn't even needed to write it down. Which had impressed Anthony. Which had pleased Sherlock. Anthony seemed impressed by many things Sherlock did and so Sherlock had sought opportunities to impress Anthony further. Anthony ought to witness as many fantastic things about Sherlock as possible as soon as possible so Anthony will respond with favour and praise, which made Sherlock feel like flying (which was ridiculous of course but there it was).

Like the way John used to be impressed and smile and then he would say things like 'Amazing!' and 'Incredible!" And Sherlock would feel good – a bit unsettled too of course – but good as well. On the whole. Sherlock wanted Anthony to be amazed by Sherlock the way John used to be.

Just like that.

~!~!~

Anthony scratched at his head. "Sherlock, I'm not sure what you expect me to do here. I'm really not any sort of investigator." Anthony looked around, at bit ill-at-ease.

"That's not relevant. And it's not why I need you anyway. You're here to -"

Sherlock had not thought that far head when he rushed out 221B and into the closest cab that responded to his wave. He only knew that he wanted someone there with him. "- assist me."

Anthony - always anxious to be of use (much like John that way) - asked "How?"

"I will examine the scene and you...I will then discuss the details with you. John was my...sounding board. I would bounce theories off of him – _without_ his input – and then he – you – I require an assistant. It helps keep things clearer in my head." And in case Anthony didn't believe him. "It's an invaluable role."

Anthony's gaze didn't waver but his next words sounded...kind. Just that – _kind_. "Well, okay, if you say so."

"Do not dismiss this as charity. This is serious work." He hadn't meant to sound so cutting. "John also helped with research."

At that Anthony nodded. "That does sound interesting actually. I think I'd like to help." He stepped a foot closer. "Didn't mean to imply otherwise Sherlock."

Anthony licked his lips. In fact he looked like he wanted to kiss Sherlock right there in front of Lestrade and the Yarders. Sherlock tried to make his face not so stiff however he did nothing to encourage the act. It would not do to get distracted at a crime scene. No matter how lovely was the thought of Anthony's mouth on his.

He swallowed. His throat felt dry. And swallowed again. "Right!" He turned away and barked "So, Lestrade, where are these bodies?"

~!~

"They weren't killed here?" Lestrade looked at the bodies, as they all had for the last hour. Both bodies had the appearance of being carried a short way and then unceremoniously dumped on the gritty, wet bank of the Thames.

"That's not what I said." Sherlock had been going to say 'don't be an idiot Lestrade' but Anthony was nearby and to all appearances watching and listening with rapt attention. It would not do to provide him with any reason to think Sherlock less than fantastically skilled at his abilities. "I said he was killed here, she was not."

Lestrade looked at him pointedly; clear he knew Sherlock would continue talking without prompting.

Sherlock straightened, easing the tension in his spine. Anthony was following his every movement. Then he swirled on Lestrade a bit quicker than was necessary, his coat billowing out just a little. Yes, that was the ticket. "Undoubtedly you noticed the defensive wounds on the underside of his forearms and, although difficult to see at night, the small pools and splatters of blood on the ground and mixed in with the mud stains on his jeans meaning he was ordered to kneel and then raised his arms when it became clear the perpetrator, utilizing a long knife brought for the purpose - probably a hunting knife –began to strike at him. This was a small man. There are his shoe prints but there is a second set of prints you can see here, and here, which indentations in the sporadic patches of soil are clearly much deeper. She has spatters of blood on her side, indicating she was lying down, and unmoving, while he was struck. She is also wearing no shoes but her feet are relatively clean meaning she was carried but why carry a body when it's more work? Hence she was either unconscious or already dead when she was dumped here.

"There is no wallet in his hand and no indication of a purse anywhere but not a simple robbery. This is much too vicious for mere street thugs. Once you've identified the bodies more will be learned, until then my best theory would be unpaid debts of a substantial sum was owed someone by this man. His wife – you see that the style of their rings match thus confirming my theory that it was debts and not simply robbery – what mugger would leave diamond rings behind? She was first taken and drugged as a warning. The husband knew it was his fault hence the salt tracks on his cheeks; dried tears. It's unlikely the wife even knew about the debts - her clothes are expensive, the nylons alone run twenty quid. She was probably snatched first as leverage but they gave her too much of whatever drug, possibly Ketamine - you see the faint smudges of what appears to be vomit at the corners of her mouth? A common side effect of Ketamine, particularly in those not prone to taking controlled substances. Unfortunately it is most likely what killed her but an autopsy will confirm either way.

"They killed her accidentally and then they killed her husband when they discovered he was unable to pay. At that juncture they had nothing left to lose. Once you've caused the death on one, what's another? I would research missing persons for a husband and wife. They live in London, West side..."

Sherlock trailed off, looking back at Lestrade who stared back, his face a mixture of admiration and exasperation. Not just a simple murder but maybe a drug gang, or cartel, operating in London. Swell.

"Er, yes, thank you Sherlock. We're already looking into, er, _some_ of that."

Sherlock knew that meant they'd missed a few things.

Sherlock nodded to the Deputy Inspector, refused his offer of a ride home in a police car and walked back the few steps where Anthony waited.

Anthony was very quiet as they walked the few blocks back to the A102 to gather up a cab. Sherlock wondered if he had done something wrong. Had he been too dramatic? Had he talked too much? Had he insulted someone in a way he didn't realise? People were always so sensitive when one spoke the truth, it was bewildering. But he had only spoken the truth about the corpses. Perhaps Anthony had not liked seeing the bodies? Sherlock suddenly stiffened with the thought. It had been _stupid_ of him to ask Anthony to come. Anthony probably feels nauseated by the whole event. _What_ had he been thinking? He was the worlds' only consulting detective, the world's most _brilliant_ detective in fact, he should have _seen_ that Anthony would be offended by a bloody crime scene. Anthony probably thought the whole thing grotesque and tragic. _Stupid!_ He was rarely so stupid.

~!~!~!~

Once they were both inside 221B Antony spoke for the first time (while Sherlock watched in his peripheral vision. He could not bring himself to look directly at the man who was no doubt about to explain why he didn't want to see Sherlock Holmes anymore), and scratching a hand through his buzzed hair. "That was really something Sherl'. No, scratch that, it was bloody _fantastic!"_

While his heart soared at the wholly unexpected praise Sherlock cringed at the shortened version of his name. That particular one his father had used. Sherlock hung up his coat and remembered to take Anthony's heavy leather and wool jacket from his hand as well.

Should he mention how he hated the nick-name? Was that 'on'? He didn't want to discourage informal behavior from Anthony. Casual names or nick-names between a friends or lover meant the person was starting to relax. It was a good sign. One of attachment. It meant Anthony was not going to leave despite Sherlock dragging him to a horrific crime scene.

When Sherlock turned to offer Anthony tea as thanks (he had learned how to make an excellent cup just last week. It ought to impress Anthony), Anthony was there, pressing his body against Sherlock and backing him to the door, his mouth finding Sherlock's hungrily. When the larger man came up for air, he growled into his right ear "I've been _dying_ to do that to you all night. Do you have _any_ idea how fucking sexy you are? Brains are so _fucking_ sexy!" Then he buried his nose in the curls just above Sherlock's nape. "And your hair and that goddamn gorgeous body - _Jesus_..."

Anthony's nose in his hair tickled. Sherlock, his heart fluttering like a newborn foal, like the wings of a bird, like it might burst out of his chest and fly around the room in happiness, could think of nothing to say but "Thank you for coming with me tonight."

Anthony was only half listening. "It was all my pleasure, believe me." He stood even closer, if that were possible. "You said you might have some research for me to do but if it's all the same to you, I have some of my own research to perform." And he pressed an obvious erection straining in his jeans against Sherlock's left thigh, making Sherlock jump a little.

Was it time already for this? Was Anthony expecting to go to bed with him? Now? _Here?_ In his _bedroom?_ How fast did these things usually progress? Sherlock had taken Anthony with him on a case. Did that mean they were more than casual now? He didn't know. John had asked him out during their first dinner together. But Sherlock remembered, to some embarrassment, his self-consciousness at the time and had shut down John's subtly worded inquiry; the very idea of a sexual partner had made him extremely nervous and unsure of himself and if there's one thing he hated feeling in all the world, it was being unsure about something.

Sherlock wished he could excuse himself and call John. John would know. He'd bedded dozens of people – mostly women but the occasional man - over the years. John could tell him if it was okay.

Anthony, seeming to somehow sense Sherlock's reluctance, put a bit of space between their bodies, whispering "No pressure Sherlock. No pressure." And when Sherlock didn't say anything - " _Okay?"_ Blown pupils in Hazel eyes looked into frosted, and startled, blue ones. Anthony did not fail to note it. "It's _fine_ , babe'," he insisted, "We can wait."

Sherlock wondered if that was true. Anthony was telling him the truth. It was obvious. Still it was out-of-the-ordinary, he knew, for one to feel as _abstruse_ about sex as he did. Sherlock frowned. So much of his own feelings perplexed him. How did one _do_ this 'falling in love' business? "But this is unusual, isn't it? For you, I mean, my...hesitance. You're no doubt used to quicker, um, _responses_ from your... partners."

Anthony shrugged. "Some things are worth waiting for."

Again Anthony sounded and looked sincere. Sherlock felt the need to explain further, even though he could not pinpoint exactly why he was so reluctant to share that part of himself with anyone. "I-I don't know why this is so _difficult_. I apologise." _Please be patient with me while I work out why my moronic brain wants me to run away from a clearly decent, loving man. Please, please, please..._

"I _said_ it's alright." Anthony kissed him once more and then turned to more practical matters. "Now, sexy man, it's four-thirty-five in the morning and I'm going to go home, have a delicious – as you Brit's say - _wank_ in the shower while thinking about you. And then go to bed for the whole damn day."

Just then, Anthony had sounded like John - when he'd said 'wank' – just the way John used to. Exactly.

But now Anthony was leaving and Sherlock had no idea how to fix it. Sherlock hadn't meant to drive Anthony away. "You're welcome to shower here and then sleep with me." He said quickly, stringing his words together a little while waving an uncertain right hand in the direction of the hall that led to his bedroom. "I mean we could share the same bed. Save yourself the bother of cab-fare and...and...cab-fare."

Anthony's expression remained warm and he leaned in for another satisfying smack on the lips. "You're not rid of me Sherlock. I plan on coming back again and again and then eventually _coming_ ," he waggled his eyebrows, "again and again." He smiled widely, slipping his coat off the hook where Sherlock had hung it up not fifteen minutes ago. "Besides, having you beside me so close and," His eyes indulged in an up and down sweep of Sherlock's body, " _lovely_ might give my genitals more ideas." He leaned in for yet one more kiss on the lips and then - "'Nite sweetness. I'll call you tomorrow." Before closing the door behind him.

Sherlock lay in bed in his pajama bottoms and tee-shirt – the flat was cold tonight! – And thought about Anthony's words as they had seemed to relate to himself.

Fantastic...

Babe...

Sexy...

Babe...sexy...

Sexy brains...

 _Sweetness..._

 _Sweetness sweetness sweetness..._

 _Sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness_

 _sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness_

 _sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness_

 _sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness_

 _sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness sweetness_

 _sweetnesssweetnesssweetnesssweetnesssweetnesssweetnesssweetnesssweetnesssweetness..._

He fell asleep.

~!~!~!~

Part 3 asap


	3. Chapter 3

" **And When I Say 'Friend'..." Part 3**

By GE Waldo

 **Rating** : Mature but with some humour.

 **Pairing** : John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC and eventually Johnlock.

 **Summary** : John's new life makes him long for his old and Sherlock's new beau makes John just...jealous! Takes place in a possible future universe after John and Mary's baby has arrived.

 **Warning! Secondary character death!**

 **Disclaimer** : Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.

Again - hastily edited. Forgive!

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH~!~!~!~!~!~!~SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

"Sherlock, what are we doing here?"

Sherlock had urged Anthony to wear a warm coat due to the weather forecast. He had explained the basics to him but, much like John, Anthony required details. "The case I told you about -"

"The one where the guy was running drugs out of his wife's hair salon?"

"Yes. Lestrade doubts my observations in this instance because the husband has been exceptionally careful not to arouse his naive wife's suspicions. As far as she understands it, he is a night watchman at a highly guarded government facility and has thus far kept her in the dark."

"So we're here in the dark to catch him in the act?" Anthony thought that was a bit dangerous. Criminals were likely to have guns and would not be too pleased to have their operation exposed.

As though Sherlock had read his thoughts, the sleuth added "We are here to observe and note the goings on. All I need is proof that Gerald Easby is moving product in and out of 'Mister Mario's' and it'll be enough for a warrant."

"Where's he hiding them, the drugs I mean?"

"These older establishments often have draughty basements the entrances usually boarded up. It would not have been too difficult for Gerald to have availed himself of the un-used storage area. In this case, I studied the original building plans and this one's basement has remained un-used since after its construction in the 1890's. His wife would be unlikely to venture into a damp outdated lower floor that was no doubt infested with rats." Sherlock raised a hand in warning. A small van without its headlamps shining approached the rear entrance across from which they were concealed behind a dust bin – the large industrial kind. Three figures could be seen exiting the vehicle carrying several small boxes each. Sherlock whispered "It is unlikely Missus Easby would have her salon chemicals delivered at such an hour but the locals would not know that." He pointed to a decal on the side of the white, mud-stained van. "You see?" Anthony's eye followed Sherlock's finger to a sign that read: 'Salon Surplus Inc.'

Sherlock whispered. "What could be simpler? Make or acquire a decal with such a generic name - certainly enough to fool the local residents into believing nothing usual was going on. _Child's play_! That is most definitely Gerald Easby and his partners-in-crime delivering his own product to his wife's salon in preparation for dealing. He may even have a small drug operation in there. The salon's own hair chemicals such as the ammonium thioglycolate and hydrogen peroxides used in the so-called 'permanents' would be sufficient to cover up any additional odor from a small cook."

"Really? How long does it take to make a street drug?"

"In as little as four hours. Plenty of time to cook, package the product and clean up well before his wife arrives to open the salon."

"Jesus." Anthony felt sweat break out on his forehead. It was both nerve-wracking and thrilling, being where they were, skulking around an alleyway waiting to catch a criminal red-handed. "But how are we going to prove it."

"We wait until they are all inside and busy, then we search the van for evidence."

"Don't we need a warrant?"

"Probably."

"What if they lock the van?"

Sherlock's lips turned up in one of his self confident smiles. Anthony thought there was little else in the world sexier than those lips. "Not to worry." Sherlock assured him.

Sherlock waited exactly eight minutes after the last of the three men had disappeared inside the salon's rear entrance before slipping out from his hiding place and making his way quickly to the van's side door, his right hand clasped in Anthony's left coat sleeve, urging him along. It was another four minutes before Sherlock managed to trip the door lock. Using a small pen-torch Sherlock began to rummage around inside the van's untidy interior. Momentarily in a hushed whisper - _"Ha!"_ he exclaimed holding up a small bottle of chemical which label Anthony was unable to read in the narrow beam of the torch

The alleyway was suddenly lit up like an arena when other lights came on and someone shouted. "Hold it right there. You're all under arrest!"

Both Sherlock and Anthony spun, Anthony's heart in his throat, to confront a row of four figures standing in the dark beyond the blinding lights not twenty feet away. Then one of the figures stepped forward. "Oh bloody hell. _Sherlock!"_

Lestrade stepped closer, returning his issue weapon to his shoulder holster and waving at the others to do the same. In the over-bright beams of the officer's torches, the man Anthony now knew as DI Greg Lestrade. Sherlock frequently called him either 'Gavin' or 'Grant' (which was not the only name Sherlock tended to mix up – even people he proclaimed to know _well._ Once Anthony had asked him if he'd ever met Elizabeth II and Sherlock had looked at him as though he were a puzzle. _"Who?"_ Sherlock had answered). He really did have an awful time with common names and places. Even things like holidays and public figures. It was a quirk of the genius detective Anthony found as endearing as it was surprising.

Lestrade, oblivious to Anthony's fond feelings over anything relating to the frustrating Sherlock Holmes, now appeared not only haggard but fuming! He threw up his arms in a grand gesture of futility. "What the bloody hell, Holmes?"

~!~!~

Anthony climbed the stairs to 221B after Sherlock. Closing the door to the sitting room, Anthony plopped down in the fabric chair by the hearth. "Wow, was he ever mad."

Sherlock poured them each two generous fingers of whiskey and handed one of the tumblers to Anthony. He sipped, shrugging. "He often is."

Sherlock's collection method, that had made the one bottle of crucial chemical liquid in the van in-admissible into evidence, did not seem to bother the sleuth. "But they won't be able to use it in court." Anthony insisted.

"How was _I_ to know there would only be _one_ bottle in the van? Besides Lestrade's team can take forensic scrapings from the carpet; fibers, prints, hair and DNA samples and so on. One would hope his team is competent enough for _that_."

Anthony swallowed down his whiskey. "Well, I'll say one thing, Sherlock Holmes - that was the most fun I've had in years."

Sherlock looked pleased.

Anthony fetched the whiskey bottle off the mantel and re-poured for each of them. "I have an idea. What do you say you and I go on a little holiday?"

Sherlock started. Speaking as though the concept was entirely new to him - "Holiday?" He asked. Then, as if needing to test out the word like it was foreign on his tongue and a stranger to his senses. "What sort of... _holiday_?"

"A trip." Anthony said, quite innocently believing that was enough clarification. He retook his seat but sitting forward, sipping his drink with enthusiasm. "Yeah. Maybe, I dunno', out to some resort area somewhere. Isn't Brighton supposed to be pretty this time of year?"

Sherlock was not enthusiastic. "You mean in the _country_?" Sherlock's face made it plain he considered it a ghastly idea. "It's November twenty-seventh, _nothing_ in Britain is pretty this time of year. Brighton will be mostly mud."

"But if we find a nice little hotel somewhere, or an Inn, we don't have to spend our time outdoors. You know - good drink, good food, room with a fireplace and nice thick rug on the floor, big, soft _bed_..."

Sherlock stared. _Oh._ Anthony was suggesting a get-away. A romantic weekend. Not one where you were required to go traipsing up and down rain-soaked hills and admiring the fog shrouded cliffs but one where they would share...things. Where it would be just them. The _two_ of them.

Together.

Romantically.

Kissing.

Fondling.

Most likely having sex.

 _Oh..._ Sherlock's brain did a flash freeze and then took another moment to consider the idea. It might be...interesting, actually, to spend time with Anthony in such a setting. Sherlock was even willing to use the word _captivating_. He had already experienced Anthony's kissing method, which was quite good. How might it be to experience other things with him? The thought of divesting himself of all his clothes and actually having full, very intimate, very physical sex with someone, left Sherlock a little breathless and tense.

Yet there was also anticipation, intrigue and...and...

His body suddenly provided its own answer to the idea with a sharp spike of heat low in his belly. A hot swell somewhere inside him that was separate from rational thought and the cool, precise rooms of his mind palace. A place inside him that was still wild and raw. "I think...well...that sounds acceptab –um - _good._ Yes...I - good."

Yes, just that. Quite good.

Lovely in fact. "But what about your business?" Sherlock held his breath, hoping Anthony would respond in the way he hoped he would.

Anthony ran a small, mildly profitable coffee shop in a middle class but still fashionable part of London. Anthony was hardly ever _at_ the shop, leaving the running of it to his capable staff. Anthony was, in fact, semi-retired, which was agreeable since that afforded him plenty of free time to focus on Sherlock. Left him quite a lot of time which he used to visit Sherlock in his home, accompany him on cases whenever they proved interesting enough to leave the flat, have drinks with him after, or dinner as the mood struck and, more and more frequently, snog each other on the sofa for a good hour or so afterward. These facts did not displease Sherlock.

Sherlock hoped his question of practicalities had not derailed Anthony's idea. _Please say we're still going. Pleasepleaseplease..._

Anthony dismissed his coffee shop business with a wave of his hand. "It'll be fine Sherlock. I'm thinking of putting it up for sale anyway. Whaddya' say?"

With a feeling of enormous relief, Sherlock drained his glass. This trip would provide him with much more snogging, an activity at which Anthony excelled. Plus Anthony had promised him 'no pressure', though Sherlock wondered, and worried, quite regularly, when Anthony's patience in that regard might run out. Two months and three weeks of snogging and little else would have discouraged a lesser man, Sherlock thought. But Anthony was proving to be a rather exceptional one. Not quite as intriguing as Watson had been in their earlier acquaintance-ship, but certainly more willing to explore Sherlock's world than most others had ever been. 'Most' consisting of Victor in Uni and one other boy years prior to that. Neither had lasted beyond six weeks. But Anthony seemed not only to be sticking around, he wanted even more of Sherlock than anyone else had ever desired, including Watson.

As stupidly emotional as it was, it made him feel...warm. It made him feel good. About himself. "Yes. Let's do that."

Anthony's next words were not spoken but he made his meaning plain with his lips against Sherlock's.

And Sherlock understood perfectly.

~!~!~

Mary shifted the few groceries, milk and butter, bread and jam, coffee and a small bag of apples, in her right hand while she struggled to carry Elicia in her left. They hadn't yet managed to get a pram so for now she made do. Besides Elicia had been an angel in Tesco's and it was only a few blocks to the shop and back. All in all it was a pleasant day, too, for November so it was fine.

What was not fine was Mycroft's bloody black Bentley suddenly creeping alongside to her left. "Oh God, what does he want?" Personally she was not fond of Sherlock's older brother. Mycroft Holmes was a pompous arse. Plus whenever she was around him, she felt a little nervous. Sherlock had not told his older brother who has shot him and Mycroft had ceased to push him about it. _He probably thinks he'll figure it out himself anyway_ she thought. Still, she didn't like to be reminded that she was on thin ice as far as her present life was concerned. If Mycroft Holmes found out it had been her...

That was not a comforting thought. She had, not intentionally but still it had resulted in it all the same, killed his little brother. Sherlock's heart had stopped. He had been dead and Mycroft Holmes was not a man to let the perpetrators of such an event lie. Had he figured it out? She'd likely already have a bullet in the brain if that were the case.

The car stopped and the door opened. Rolling her eyes, Mary stepped over to the darkened window. May as well find out what the posh buggar wants. The door opened and Mary climbed in.

~!~!~

Anthony inserted the key in the lock and turned it. Sherlock had given him a key to 221B just the previous week. It was like a badge of honour that. He felt a bit of pride that Sherlock trusted him to that extent.

Divesting himself of his coat - and shoes just to take the pressure off. New shoes. Not broken in yet. He should have worn his trainers instead of these polished leather, bloody hundred pound Dune Alex Lace-ups. What had he been thinking?

Anthony shook his head at himself. He'd been thinking that Sherlock always looked so well put together that he'd wanted to dress himself up a bit for him. Clearly and simply he'd wanted Sherlock to be pleased at his somewhat plain and ordinary boyfriend's change of attire. Idiotic of course but there it was. He should have been practical and settled for a good pair of brown brogues.

But no matter, it felt good to be home, well, _here_. Racing around the city with Sherlock was a grand time, no doubt about it, but he was pushing his mid-forties and that sort of thing was a younger man's game. Not that he was old. Not precisely. Just in need of a good night's sleep and a proper breakfast tomorrow and Sherlock had promised him both, insisting he stay at the more central flat while he wrapped up yet another investigation at the Yard, where he'd be most of the night.

Anthony was looking forward to sleeping in Sherlock's bed, even if Sherlock was not also going to be in it. He wondered what it smelled like? Undoubtedly like vanilla shampoo and expensive cologne and dry cleaned, freshly pressed suits. It would smell like Sherlock.

One decent sleep and he can resume running all over London with the charismatic and sexy Sherlock Holmes. His boyfriend. He had not mentioned the word to Sherlock of course (the detective was still a little nervous over the idea, like a spooked buck). Anthony chuckled to himself. He was not an impatient man and knew a good thing when he saw it, and Sherlock Holmes was a very good thing. Good for him. And he liked to think that he was good for Sherlock too. Sherlock needed someone to watch his back (and to stroke his front whenever possible).

The previous night but one he'd taken Sherlock in hand and spoke to him about it. Anthony suspected that Sherlock had grown so used to living in isolation that the idea of being touched made his skin crawl a little. Or that possibly Sherlock was a bit on the spectrum. He'd read a bit about that. Sherlock seemed to dislike a touch that as too tentative, too soft. But Anthony had noticed that if his hands were firm against his skin, if he held Sherlock tightly then the sleuth had all but melted beneath his fingers. It had been a terrifically satisfying revelation. Sex was not going to be a problem if he took the lead and did it in a steadfast way; without hesitation or doubt. Because he was convinced that Sherlock would be able to pick up on any vacillation in an instant.

The trip to Brighton was going to be fabulous.

Anthony stooped to stir the coals in the fire but the blaze they'd had the previous afternoon was, of course, now stone cold in the grate. A small creak, like a foot on a stairwell, made him turn his head.

Once he got over the surprise of seeing a stranger in Sherlock's sitting room, Anthony began to observe as Sherlock had been teaching him. She was dressed in grey joggers and a terrycloth jumper. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a tight bun and she wore dark glasses. Too dark for indoors. How could she see anything in the dim sitting room of 221B? The curtains were drawn. There was only a single lamp on in the corner. He could make out no facial features at all although she seemed a bit...familiar? A pale woman, perhaps five foot four or so. She had a scarf covering her hair. And she wore trainers. Black trainers.

One of Sherlock's clients? Or one of the street people Sherlock often talked about? "May I help you?" He offered, not knowing what else to say. May as well be courteous.

"Oh shit. Goddamn bloody shit." She whispered.

Her cheeks shone wet in the dusk of the room. She'd been crying. Anthony was about to ask her what she meant and what was wrong and why she was there when she raised her arm, pointing it straight at him.

In her hand was a gun. Small caliber. Not a loud weapon. Meant for an up close and personal kill. She breathed out a long sigh and said "I'm sorry. Truly I am."

And fired.

~!~!~

John bounded up the stairs and, rounding the landing, almost ran directly into Lestrade. He was barking instructions into his phone and his face was a bit thunderous because the person on the other end wasn't listening as closely as the DI would like. 'No. I said send me O'Neil – because he bloody doesn't trade insults. Yes, _now_."

Lestrade hung up and motioned John to stand aside as two Ambulance Techs manoeuvred a stretcher up the stairs. "John. Did Sherlock call you?"

He shook his head. "Mrs. Hudson."

Lestrade nodded. "Yeah, she found the body."

"Is Sherlock upstairs?"

"Yeah. He's insisting on helping and I've already explained to him that he can't."

John nodded, anxious to get to Sherlock but wanting to be brought at least partly up to speed before he did. "What happened?"

"She found him. Was looking for Sherlock to give him something; baking I think. Called 999 and then me. I called Sherlock."

"Shitty."

Lestrade nodded. It was, again, a late evening for the Deputy Inspector, and he looked strung out. "Was he and Sherlock -?"

"I think so." John nodded again. They _Were._ "Yeah."

"Shit." Lestrade climbed the steps and John followed. Greg jerked a thumb down the hall towards Sherlock's bedroom. "He's in there."

John knocked softly on the door and opened it, not waiting for a reply. "Sherlock?"

Sherlock spun on him. He was not to any appearances grieving, although with Sherlock, that could be a deception. His large hands in fists and thrust deeply into trouser pockets - "John!" he exclaimed when he saw him. "Good. You're here." He nodded a profoundly unhappy sneer in the direction of the sitting room. "Perhaps _you_ can talk some sense into these imbeciles. I'm the _perfect_ man to solve this. I _knew_ Anthony. Who better to catch his killer than the one who knew him best?"

John had no argument to that but he also knew it was not going to happen. "Lestrade's hands are tied Sherlock. Anthony was your - you _can't_ be involved."

Sherlock shrugged off the words that had already been repeated to him a half dozen different ways by a rumpled Lestrade. "I don't need their permission. I can look into it on my own. I _will_."

John blew out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding. "Can we, um, can we sit down please?"

Sherlock stared at the edge of the bed as though it were an alien object. "If you must," He sniffed.

John took Sherlock's elbow and walked him to the bed with mere finger pressure. _"Please,_ Sherlock. Come on - just sit down for a moment please."

Sherlock let out a heavy sigh and did as asked. "Is this where you tell me that it's okay to cry or some such sentiment?"

John rolled his eyes. "No, this is where we sit and talk about what you're going to do, and _not_ going to do, over the next few days. And you are _not_ going to interfere with this investigation."

"This was an execution. Someone put a gun to Anthony's head and fired. Point blank. A shot to the _centre_ of his forehead, John. It was a calculated, deliberate execution. And he _saw_. He _knew_." Sherlock's voice got louder as he spoke. "He _knew_ who it was. I'm sure of it. Anthony -" It was then his words faltered and he swallowed hard, several times before continuing. "He did not _deserve_ this. He was..." Swallow. "He was a non-violent man." Again his voice-box went dry. A hard lump had lodged itself deep inside and would not shift.

John stared sadly at his friend. "I know he was a good man."

Sherlock whispered, not convinced. "Ridiculous. You hardly knew him."

"But he was still a good man."

Sherlock looked at the dusty wood flooring. At his hands and his shoes. Not at John sitting next to him. "How could you possible know that?"

"Because I know _you_." John hesitated but then decided to ask. He had speculated about it. "You loved him, yes?"

Sherlock snorted. A scoff but not yet a denial. Finally after a moment he shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. He...we...I've never..." A smaller shrug and he shook his head a bit. "Maybe..."

"I'm very sorry Sherlock." John looked around at the unmade bed. He noticed an unfamiliar coat hung on the hook beside Sherlock's bedroom door. Brown suede with sheepskin lining. Anthony's. Had to be. It was not one of John's old forgotten ones left behind when he'd moved out and not at all Sherlock' style. "I'd like to stay here, overnight, if that's all right?"

Sherlock nodded. "You don't have to ask, John. You don't ever have to ask."

~!~!~

Later, once the room had been cleared (despite John's insistence that Sherlock not be in the room when they placed Anthony's body in a bag and hauled it down the stairs into the waiting ambulance, Sherlock was present for every moment. John worried that Sherlock was trying to glean what details he could from the scene before it was made useless), John poured each of them four fingers of single malt and urged Sherlock to sit in front of the fire. Sherlock joked about an orange blanket and why wasn't John wrapping him head to foot in one.

"Whether you're willing to admit it or not, Sherlock, you've just had a serious shock. Now do what your doctor orders and drink that."

Sherlock stared into his glass. "We were going to go to Brighton."

John swallowed hard. Yes, he'd thought as much. Not that he'd known about Brighton exactly, simply that Sherlock and Anthony had grown much closer of late. John had hardly seen either of them. Not for weeks. And Sherlock, the few times they'd spoken, had sounded good. Even happy. As news went, plans for Brighton, a holiday together, wasn't all that surprising. "Oh?" He did not know what to say or how to phrase his curiosity without seeming morbid or nosey so he feigned ignorance. "You were?"

Just the barest fraction of a nod. "Yes, he and I, we...he booked it last week." Sherlock's face twisted a little at that and John knew the walls were falling. Still what a silent tumbling it was, the crumbling of his friend's defenses rolled gently to the earth, stirring up hardly any dust at all. Orderly. Controlled, even in this. Even in sorrow, as ever he was, poised. Elegant.

John wondered if he walked those few feet between their chairs and took him in his arms, would Sherlock allow it? Would John be able to put his arms around him and hold fast? "I'm here, Sherlock, for whatever you need."

Sherlock finished his drink and for a moment stared at John's kind face across the few feet of dust-filled air. Then he placed his glass on the arm of his chair, muttered goodnight and retired to his room, closing the door behind him.

In his room, Sherlock divested himself of his suit jacket, shirt and trousers. Then his eye fell upon Anthony's favorite winter coat and he took it down, meaning to thrust it into the back of his closet on the floor, willing himself to forget about it. He would get rid of it later.

Instead he sat on the edge of his bed and buried his nose in it. It still smelled of him. It smelled of running through the streets of London. It smelled of Anthony's mid-priced after-shave and his sweat. It smelled of laughter and kissing and hope. It smelled of a life particular to Anthony Orest Williams. A good life. A life he almost got to share. One that had almost been theirs.

 _Theirs._ Almost, almost...

~!~

John sat up for a while and then quietly walked to Sherlock's bedroom door in his socked feet. Silently, in case Sherlock was asleep. The light was not on beneath the door crack but John heard something. A high pitched whine interlaced with soft gasps and all heavily muffled by something, as though Sherlock was breathing into a pillow, stifling his noises. Still, it was clear.

Sherlock was crying.

John leaned his head against the door, wishing he had the courage to let himself in. But he had no idea how Sherlock might react. And he deserved his privacy, didn't he? If that's what he wanted.

 _I'm so sorry, my friend. I'm so, so very sorry..._

 _~!~!~!~!~_


	4. Chapter 4

" **And When I Say 'Friend'..." Part 4**

By GE Waldo

 **Rating** : Mature but with some humour.

 **Pairing** : John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC and eventually Johnlock.

 **Summary** : John's new life makes him long for his old and Sherlock's new beau makes John just...jealous! Takes place in a possible future universe after John and Mary's baby has arrived.

 **Disclaimer** : Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.

 _ **Wanted to get this out before we left for the weekend.**_ _ **This has been quickly edited. Sorry. In a hurry!**_

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH~!~!~!~!~!~!~SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

When John got home early the next morning (just as the sky was turning from shale over to pink), to the home he shared with Mary and his little daughter, the first thing he did was hug Mary to him like she was his rock. And in a way he was. She'd been there most of those horrible months after Sherlock's so-called suicide. And now she was there being his rock once more when he was hurting for his friend and could nothing for him.

He wished he could be Sherlock's rock. Sherlock needed a rock.

"How is he?" She asked when she pulled away to take a good look at him.

John rubbed the sleep put of his eyes. There had been little of it the night before when he'd attempted to kip on Sherlock's couch in his clothes. He'd been too worried to sleep. "Devastated," he said. "Not that we'll ever get him to admit it of course."

Mary bit her lip. She looked tired too. "What do you think we should do?"

John shrugged, plopping down in one of the two wooden chairs (cushioned with decorative throw pillows – patterns of daisies - held on by little strings), tucked under their yellow round kitchen table. The eating 'nook' was barely large enough to hold it, their chairs and Elicia's pink high chair. Mary put on the kettle for tea. "I dunno'," He yawned widely. "Elicia still sleeping?"

Mary nodded. "We slipped out to the shops yesterday and it tuckered her out."

"Really? _You_ look like you've had hardly any sleep at all."

Mary shrugged again. "It's nothing. Just one of those nights, you know."

John sipped the tea Mary placed in front of him. At least Elicia was sleeping through the night. That was good news. "I'll probably be at Sherlock's this afternoon again. Do you have anything going on today?" Mary sometimes went out with friends one or two afternoons a week whenever John wasn't at the surgery. In those instances John took his daughter to the park, or Janine baby-sat if John couldn't be there. And, only once in a while, Elicia was dropped off at Missus Hudsons for the afternoon. But John didn't like to do that too often. He didn't like taking advantage of Martha. Especially now when Sherlock needed all the looking after he could get but would never ask for and at least Sherlock tolerated Martha's fussing over him.

He needed some fussing over.

"No, I'll be here."

"I'm going to catch a few hours sleep while I can." John said, swallowing his tea and kissing Mary on the cheek before he slipped down the hall to their bedroom. Their flat was a one bedroom plus den; the tiny den Mary had turned into Elicia's nursery. John shrugged out of his clothes, slipped on a pair the threadbare pajama bottoms and popped into his daughter's room to see her - just to _see_ her; drink her in - before getting some much needed shut-eye.

She was on her back, her tiny mouth opened in a sweet pucker, and breathing the fast, normal, breaths of the very young. John let one of her tiny hands curl around his left index finger. Hard to believe she would someday be as tall as him and probably look just like her mother. He _hoped_ she would look like Mary and not him. Her little sleeve was loose at the wrist and John noticed a tiny mark. He pushed the sleeve up a bit more. A bruise. Not a big bruise but a small bruise and, further up, one more about the same size. "Mary." He called back down the hall, not too loudly so not to wake Elicia.

Mary appeared, drying her hands on a dish cloth, and looking at him inquiringly.

He showed her the marks. "Do you have any idea how she got these marks?"

Mary looked, paused for the briefest of seconds, and then smiled gently. "We stopped by the little park on the way back from the shops. You know - the one with the sandboxes shaped like train cars? You wouldn't believe how rough she plays, even on the grass."

"But on the _grass_? How could she get bruises on her forearm like this if she was playing on the grass?"

Mary raised one eyebrow at him. "She's her father's daughter, John. Kids get scrapes and bruises all the time, you know that. She kept slapping at the ground, dislodged a few pebbles." At his expression of unwavering fatherly concern, she laughed a bit. "Honestly, John, she's a baby and babies are active. Stop being such a fuddy-duddy - she's _fine."_

John watched his wife disappear back down the hall and heard her opening cupboards and putting dishes away. The ordinary sounds of domestic life.

Perfectly sound explanation. He saw little kids in the surgery all the time, cuts, bruises, marks from play, bike-riding, the monkey-bars. Nothing unusual about it really. But despite his wife's assurances that everything was fine with Elicia and that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred yesterday when they were out, he still had the gut feeling that.

He had just been lied to.

~!~!~

Sherlock stepped into the shower first thing with the water turned as hot as he could stand it. He needed to wash away the jumble of emotions that still plagued him from the previous evening. He needed to solve this and to do that he needed a clear head and therefore he needed to _think_.

Missus Hudson had been good enough to wash away the blood and gore from the flat so when he walked into the sitting room wearing his robe, there was no sign of what event had occurred the day before. The floor was spotless and there was a sharp odor in the air of pine-sol and bleach. The soiled throw rug that had sat in front of the hearth had been binned.

Every sign of a murder committed had vanished. As had Anthony. Sherlock felt the lump in his throat once more. Try as he might he could not shift it, and this morning a second swell of...whatever – _something_ – had taken up residence in his chest. A hollow place, a cavity where Anthony used to dwell. Now nothing lived there but.. _.space_.

Coffee. He needed lots of coffee. Opening the cupboard he pulled out a mug. He filled the coffee machine with water to its highest level ( _lots_ of coffee!), and rummaged around in the tin boxes and things piled in the other cupboard for some grounds. He found them.

Sumatran Fine Grind. Expensive. Guaranteed to taste "Rich to the palate with a smooth finish".

Anthony had purchased them. Sumatran was – had been - his favorite. When he'd come over one night a week prior he had brought with him a brown paper bag with two packages of coffee, one for himself and one for Sherlock. Plus some really excellent scones. Really good freshly made ones from a bakery near his flat. And a jar of jam imported from Canada made from 'Saskatoon' berries. It had all tasted divine.

Sherlock did not make the coffee. He binned the pouch of coffee grounds and then searched for and found the jar of left-over jam, binning that too. There, behind the small Tupperware container of human tongues was a small plate where Anthony had lovingly covered the left-over scones in plastic wrap, saving them for the next day. They'd both forgotten about them. The scones were inedible now; dried out.

Sherlock ripped the plastic from the scones and binned it and them too. Then the plate itself.

Then he took up the coffee machine, ripped the cord from the socket and flung the whole thing at the wall with the full strength of his rage and grief, where it flew apart in an explosion of raining glass and water.

Sherlock stood in the middle of his kitchen breathing hard and shaking. The destruction had felt good. A purge of sorts, but now it was over and nothing had been accomplished. Nothing ever came of grief. Or hope. Or love.

All that ever came was disappointment. Hollow pain. Pointless loss. An exercise in uselessness- _all_ of it.

Sherlock became aware of a furious banging. It was his landlady, now calling through the door. "Sherlock! What on earth is that racket?" She let herself in. Just as well, he had no intention of moving from his spot. That is his _legs_ refused. His mind argued the point. Enough of this purposeless mourning. It was time to get up, get dressed and find Anthony's killer. _Pull yourself the fuck together Sherlock!_

Martha looked at the mess of water and glass shards and Sherlock held out an arm to bar her from entering the kitchen and possibly cutting herself. "I dropped the coffee pot. Sorry if it disturbed you." He said. She probably didn't believe him and when she took his hand in hers and squeezed it, placing her other arm around his waist and tugging him in a little, he knew he was correct.

"I am so sorry for your loss Sherlock. You should not be alone right now."

Sherlock pulled away, gently but firmly, from her embrace. "I'm _fine_. I am merely deducing possible motives behind Anthony's murder."

Martha looked worried. "I _hate_ to think...but do you think it was _you_ they were after?"

Sherlock turned away from the sight of the mess in the kitchen, and from the shining cleanliness of the floor by the fireplace. Martha had done a splendid job of cleaning up the mess. One could not tell there had been a gruesome crime not twenty-four hours ago. "I don't know. But I have to leave now and make my inquiries."

Martha took that as a hint to depart as well. "John's going with you, isn't he?"

Sherlock disappeared down the hall to his bedroom. "Stop fussing Martha."

She descended the stairs and was relieved to find John ascending them at the same time. Drawing him in to a mid-staircase huddle, she whispered "Oh, John, I'm so glad you're here. I don't think Sherlock should be alone right now."

"How is he?"

"Upset. Pretending he _isn't_ of course. And getting ready to go out I think. He wants to solve poor Anthony's murder."

"Lestrade will have something to say about that."

"Well, you _know_ how Sherlock is...don't go in the kitchen." And with that, slightly cryptic, but mutual understanding between them, she retreated into her flat.

By the time John got to the top stair and into the sitting room Sherlock had reappeared dressed in his usual black Italian suit and, this time, a suitably understated charcoal shirt, the one with the faint silver stripes. The ensemble had been well chosen. The style was all Sherlock but suitable colours for a man bereaved, though John wondered if Sherlock, while choosing his wardrobe for the day had at all factored in that second part, and then decided he was a bit of a shit for wondering it.

"John." Sherlock said tonelessly. For him, it was the same as 'hello'.

"Sherlock. Off somewhere?"

The sleuth rolled his eyes. "Not to the Yard, if that's what you're thinking. I'm off to see Mycroft."

Of course. If anyone might have knowledge on why someone would want to kill Anthony, it would be the man who'd been having him vetted in the first place. "Er, do you want some company?"

Sherlock's far-away look switched back to the present and over at John. He seemed to relax just a little. As though a weight had been, if not lifted, then shifted a little on his shoulders. "Always."

~!~!~

After a ride up in an elevator to the fifteenth floor of a domineering London tower and led to an office at the end of a hall, Mycroft's android-like female assistant greeted them at the door. When she saw who it was she opened it wider without a word.

Across a great expanse of thick carpet sat Mycroft behind an enormous maple wood desk littered with papers beside a single tumbler one third full of a golden liquid. "I have no information for you Sherlock."

Sherlock took a seat before his brother's throne of business anyway. "I find that highly unlikely." John took the chair beside Sherlock's. Both were red-dyed leather wing-back's that probably cost more than all of John and Mary's possessions put together. Exceptionally comfortable though and John settled in.

Mycroft did not look up or even say a word to 'Anthea' (or whatever her name really was), when two glasses, each graced with two fingers of Scotch, appeared out of nowhere and were placed in front of John and Sherlock. John lifted his and took a sniff. Single malt. Nothing but the best for Mycroft Holmes, he supposed and, nodding his thanks to the ice-sculpture-shaped-like-a-woman, took an appreciative sip.

Sherlock did not touch his and John wondered if it was on principle. Just to bug Mycroft for having had expensive whiskey poured for him. "You must know something." Sherlock said and John started a bit at him. Was that Sherlock Holmes asking his brother for help? And was there a bit of a plea in there? But then Sherlock had not known Anthony Williams that long. John understood that Sherlock would naturally assume that, if there _was_ anything to know about Anthony Williams, then Mycroft would have found it. Sherlock may have the seedy underbelly of London at his proverbial fingertips but Mycroft Holmes had the entire British government at his. Very little slipped under the man's radar.

After only a few months in their respective acquaintance-ship John had swiftly come to understand that each was the other brother's greatest resource, even if neither of the pompous gits would admit it.

Mycroft continued to peruse his paper-work. "You made me remove the cameras from your flat after you got back Sherlock, and I turned the CCTV on 221 Baker Street to the other direction as you demanded. There is no footage of the killer of Anthony Williams or any other...activity."

The last word had been heavily underlined with the tone of innuendo. Cameras turned away or no, Mycroft had been well aware that Sherlock and Anthony had been romantically involved. The tone had also been one of disapproval. John could not help but wonder if Mycroft would consider anyone on the planet good enough for his kid brother. But all of that suddenly sounded frightfully pedestrian in relation to Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft had been protective of his brother in the past, but only in the most heavy-handed manner. John wondered if simple family feelings came into it at all. He didn't think he really wanted to know.

John looked over at Sherlock. "Really? Did he really do that?" It would be remarkable that Mycroft would ever comply with such a request.

Mycroft raise a single irritated eyebrow at John's words. "It was a mutual agreement." He insisted. And then to Sherlock "And look where's it's gotten you."

"Yes, hugely annoying of me to need some semblance of privacy in my _own_ life." Sherlock sneered with heavy sarcasm. "Will you at least make some inquiries?" He asked with a heavy sigh, as though merely being in his brother's heavy-handed presence was exhausting.

"I'm disappointed in your lack of faith, Sherlock. Of course that is already underway and has been for some time."

Sherlock stared, his eyes narrowing, going almost steely but it seemed he thought better of any further discussion on it and stood; his drink untouched. John reached for it and swallowed it down. Whiskey that good was too rare a treat to waste. John opened his mouth to thank the elder Holmes for the drink when Mycroft beat him to it "You're welcome John." And then more quietly while he stared speculatively after Sherlock's retreating back. "Look after my brother, will you?"

John merely nodded once and followed Sherlock out the door, closing it behind him.

~!~!~

In a cab, as Sherlock texted, John decided to ask. "Mycroft's never done that before. I mean, listen to you. Are you sure he doesn't have any cameras trained on Baker Street?"

"I'm certain but it could hardly hurt to ask."

"Why would he comply? That's not like him at all."

Sherlock stuffed his phone in his coat pocket. "It was part of my price." He said enigmatically.

"Price for what?"

"For forgiving him." Sherlock stated and then, pulling at his sleeves to smooth them down. A Sherlockian tick. "That and he must serve you his best Scotch whenever we, or you, pop by his office or home."

John stared at Sherlock's telling smirk, and then they both laughed. "You're shitting me."

"Not at all."

They laughed more and John relished the feeling. "Well, I'll have to make a point of dropping by often. Weekly. Maybe daily."

"Oh at _least_." Sherlock said.

More laughter. John was almost giddy. God it felt good!

Maybe things were going to be okay.

"Where are we going anyway?"

"Barts."

"Oh? Molly got something for you?"

"No, I'm going to examine the body."

The laughter inside died. "Anth-? You mean...Sherlock, Lestrade made it clear -"

"Not to get involved with the active _investigation_. I'm not; I'm getting involved with the autopsy."

"Same thing Sherlock."

"No."

"And why is there an autopsy anyway. I mean, Anth- he was _shot_. Straight forward, isn't it?"

"I need to know the caliber of the bullet and the distance the killer stood away from Anthony when he shot him and since I am not allowed to read over Anderson's notes, I must ascertain such for myself, not that Anderson would have gotten it correct anyway. And Molly will have those results as well. If we play our cards right, she'll let me see everything and I may be able to determine further facts myself which may lead us to the killer."

"You think you'll learn something from the distance?"

"Impossible to know until I've examined the body and seen the results of the ballistics."

"This isn't a good idea Sherlock."

"Whatever sentiment you are about to impute to the situation, please _don't_."

"Anthony was your - you were _close_."

"And thus I shall find his killer."

~!~!~

Anthony was laid out on the slab and John saw that Sherlock hesitated for a moment. Only for a moment. And then the detective approached the body as though it were any other. John couldn't damn him for his fortitude but it was never-the-less unsettling to see the man – even if he'd only met him exactly twice (and then only in passing) – laid out on a metal table with the fluid drain below and the overhead-trigger-activated spray nozzle above.

This was no longer Anthony Orest Williams, the man Sherlock had been seeing, undoubtedly kissing (perhaps sleeping with?); it was just a body now. But seeing Sherlock examining the bullet wound between the man's eyes, John felt a wave of incredible sadness wash over him. Sherlock had, not even three short months ago, finally after so many years alone, fallen in love (that's what John believed anyway), and then someone had taken him away. The sleuth had not fallen in love with him, John Watson, but he had seemed happy with Anthony. And now Sherlock was back to being the merely the brilliant investigator and Anthony his tragic murder victim in question.

Sherlock had been in love.

As John watched Sherlock read notes and calculate distance and speed of the bullet according to ballistics, John watched with both sorrow for his best friend...and perhaps just the tiniest spark of... _hope?_ Why hope? He should not be feeling that. Not if he was the friend he claimed to be. Yet there it was, popping through the soil of his heart, reaching with a single tendril toward...something. What? He was married for Christ's sake. He had a child. A baby girl. A beautiful _daughter._ He was spoken for. Mary was good for him. He _loved_ her.

John ran a dry hand down his sweaty face, then crossed his arms and turned his head away to look at his shoes. Knowing Sherlock Holmes had never been an easy ride. But he also had never wanted to get off.

John hurried to correct himself even though he was only thinking, and not speaking. He'd never wanted to disembark. To dis-em- _bark._

Heat climbed to his face and he knew his ears had pinked. Thank god Sherlock's attention was elsewhere. Poor Sherlock. Through no fault of his own (Anthony, John was pretty sure, had loved Sherlock), he was once again a single man. It just wasn't fair. John only wished he could just pin down the _way_ in which he felt it wasn't fair. Sherlock had to be still in mourning.

But John felt as though a weight had been lifted from his own shoulders and he felt like a shite because of it.

Suddenly he realised Sherlock was speaking to him and John shook himself from his frivolous ponderings and straightened his back. Sherlock had not noticed his friend's odd funk. "Sorry – where are we going?" John asked as he followed Sherlock out the door (Sherlock without so much as a glance at Molly sitting on her stool doing her own work). John remembered to at least wave goodbye to her.

"I said we're going to the Yard. I need to see the case notes."

"Lestrade won't let you. He made it clear."

"He'll change his mind."

John climbed into the cab alongside the sleuth and hoped for the best.

Lestrade of course, was not pleased to see either of them. "Sherlock, I already told you, I can't give you official access to the case. You'll just have to sit this one out."

Sherlock shooed away his protest with a wave of his hand. "Ridiculous. How do you regularly operate under such foolish restrictions?"

"You know how. You just don't like it. But some of us don't do this just because there's nothing on the telly; _some_ of us have a living to get." He stood before the detective, the liquid (that smelled like burnt coffee) in his mug cooling rapidly. A film of milk had formed on the top. Sherlock noted without bothering to voice it that that meant Lestrade had microwave-ed the thing at least twice. He couldn't believe the DI was planning on consuming such a revolting beverage. But just to confirm his observation. "Is that coffee?"

Lestrade blinked a couple of times at the misfit question. "Yes, can I drink it now?"

Without missing a beat "I suppose it's possible." Sherlock said archly.

"Capital," Lestrade could be droll as well. "Thank-you _immensely._ Now go home! The Yard cannot help you."

John frowned at Lestrade. "You don't have to yell. We're standing in the same office with four working ears."

Sherlock sighed, lamenting the Yard and its boring rules. All the same his cupid lips carried the slightest smirk. "You know I can solve this if you'll just -"

Lestrade slammed a thick folder down on his over-piled desk and planted his backside into his hard seat, pulling the wheeled chair up to his desk with a musical squeak of ungreased wheels. It did lessen somewhat the authoritative stance he'd been trying to achieve by causing as much noise as possible.

"Sherlock -" Lestrade pointed a firm and thrusting finger at the door, _"GO!"_

Sherlock closed his mouth and sniffed. "Come John. We're not wanted here."

~!~

In the cab on the way to Baker Street, John saw, again, the slight upward turn of Sherlock's lips. "Why do you look...?" John wasn't sure what the descriptive ought to be to a man in mourning, even if said man wasn't showing it out of sheer stubbornness.

"Look?" Sherlock asked curiously. "'Look' what?"

"Look so _contented_?" No, 'happy' would not have done.

"Because Lestrade's sending me the case files while we speak."

"What?" John frowned. He had been there too and he was pretty sure he heard the DI order them out. And then boot them out. "But Lestrade said..."

"Lestrade said he could not _officially_ help me; that the _Yard_ could not help me. But he said nothing of himself. He has in fact never said those particular phrases to me before. Also he was shouting. _You_ even asked him to stop and pointed out that we were all in his office so yelling was unnecessary. Thus there was no reason for him to yell unless he wanted to ensure his co-workers overheard him stating that the Yard would not allow me on the case thus protecting them, and covering his, to use your favorite and colourful turn-of-phrase, own arse. In addition Lestrade is too kind a man to shout at a friend he thinks is in mourning. No, it's clear. He's emailing the notes to me right now."

"You're sure about that are you?"

Sherlock smiled softly at his blogger. "You have _met_ me, haven't you John?" The barely-there smile vanished. "Besides, I have resources that the Yard does not."

~!~!~

The homeless network, of course, John thought as he watched Sherlock rapidly type out a series of messages to his main contacts through-out the London streets. That was the resource Sherlock mentioned, the one the Yard had no access to. Whatever word Sherlock needed spread, they were the ones who would spread it. They would also report back to him (the newer ones who did not know him well and therefore did not yet trust him, would do so for a small fee), things that they heard that might be useful to him in this instance. His long-time contacts would do it for him with no demands for money, which would be an insult to them. They actually liked Sherlock. Sherlock fought for the ill-used of society (if it was interesting enough and if he thought justice would not be served via the above-board, entirely legal route). Any money that did change hands was simply for _them_.

John had seen it himself. Sherlock would note if it appeared someone had not properly eaten in days or if their coat was getting thin and the colder months were approaching. That's when John would see forty or fifty quid discreetly pass from Sherlock's hand to theirs. Done so deftly that if you weren't watching for it, you'd miss it.

John's phone rang and he knew exactly who it was because with the ringing he suddenly remembered something. "Oh crap. That's Mary. I've got to go."

Sherlock stood up from his placid and horizontal place on the couch, which was a bit out of character if John thought about it. But there was no time to contemplate. Who _wouldn't_ be out-of-sorts after their lover'd been murdered in their own flat? "Do you want me to call you with -?"

John nodded, "Yes, yes, absolutely. Call me Sherlock if you get any leads or anything. All right." John slipped his heavy coat back over his shoulders. His left ached a bit. That always happened with the coming of the colder, damper seasons. He looked at Sherlock. "Are you all right?"

Sherlock started a bit. Hardly at all, but a bit, as though not expecting John's concern for him over the last two days to be lingering still. "Of course, John. Stop worrying about me. Where are you going?"

John laced up his brogues. "I was supposed to take Mary pram shopping. Some new place on the other side of London. Good prams, reasonable price, she says. I'll have to meet up with her somewhere half way I guess."

"Ah."

Had John looked up to 221B's window overlooking Baker Street he would have noticed Sherlock pulling out his phone as John made his way down the street. But he didn't.

The wind blew. Sherlock watched through his sitting room window as John walk away. And then he typed a message to Mycroft about a pram.

And then he had a shower and as he spread soapy bubbles over his skin he thought about Anthony's tanned, masculine skin held against his. His nude skin. Wonderful and gentle and urgent skin. Thrilling naked skin.

All those things they never had together and never would. Sherlock found himself on his knees in the shower, and then bent double as the grief hit him full force once more. Shaking and sobbing with a silent scream into his hands, he realised something new had happened to him. With Anthony. New and totally unexpected. So that had been love and, as he had suspected all along, what a _vicious_ thing it was.

Because _oh_ how itached.

~!~

"Oh shit." John gripes as the shiny black Bentley purrs in alongside them.

Mary looks and suddenly stops. Her grip on Elicia is firm but Elicia begins to fuss. And then she starts wailing. John looks at his daughter and makes soothing noises, wondering what set her off and then remembering that Mycroft Holmes swooping in his bloody bat-mobile can set _anyone_ off. "Don't worry honey, he's an evil man but he's on our side - sort of."

Mary stays where she is while John walks to the window. It rolls down without a squeak and Mycroft Holmes addresses from within. "John, Mary. Perhaps a ride?"

Mary rolls her eyes but still she doesn't look at the car. In fact she turns so Elicia can no longer see it. And she shakes her head to Mycroft's offer, uncaring whether Mycroft can actually see her non-verbal response or not. Muttering to John "No chance in hell." She quipped and then said aloud "I think I'll take her home John. It's too cold to go to the damn shops anyway." She smiles but it's perfunctory. John can't blame her. Mycroft is hard task on his best day.

"The car will be warmer."

Mary gives him a look that wonders at his sanity. "With him? It's not _that_ cold." They share a secret smile in their mutually love of Sherlock yet their shared animosity of his older and, remarkably, far more insufferable brother. "You go on," Mary said, "with... _whatever_ it is he wants." The coolness in her voice is clear. "I'll see you at home."

John climbed into the toasty interior of the car's passenger seats alongside Mycroft, who was sipping at a hot tea from a china mug. No milk or sugar. Back on the diet then.

Mycroft gestures to the built-in serving tray where a pot of tea sits, steam rising from its spout and the second china cup. John gives into temptation and pours himself a mug. To his surprise the teapot is metal on the bottom as is the cup. The retractable tea tray is also metal. "Magnetic." John says.

"Nothing spills." Mycroft says.

 _Obviously_ , John thinks and then a picture of Sherlock saying the same thing to his smug sibling brings a little smile to his face. "Thank you." He remembers to say and sips at the lovely loose-leaf (probably imported Russian), Earl Grey. Perfect on a cold day.

"Tell me, john, is everything all right?"

John takes another sip. The heat is infusing him, taking away the chill of the afternoon late November air. "Everything..?"

"At home," Mycroft clarifies. "Everything at home."

The tea goes bitter in his mouth. "Okay, Mycroft bloody Holmes, here it is: thank you for the ride but my affairs at home are none of your business."

"Funny you should employ that particular noun." Mycroft answers and pulls something from the inside pocket of his suit.

"What's this?" John asks without looking at it. "Taking photos of Sherlock again are we?"

"Elicia deserves a good pram, John." Mycroft said.

John didn't even want to try and figure out what the hell that meant and instead looked at the photo.

Stared at it. Brought it a bit closer and stared at it some more.

"Your affairs are fine, you say.' Mycroft intoned gently. "But are you also _that_ certain about _Mary's_?"

John, his tone deadly, asks "What the _fuck_ is this?"

" _This_ ," Mycroft explains, "is why I wanted to speak to you today. Mary held a clandestine meeting two days ago with a man unknown to me. Unknown, in fact, to anyone _I_ know."

John could not take his eyes off the two people in the photo, particularly the female. "How is anyone unknown to you?" But he didn't care actually. Not a whit about Mycroft Holmes's book of Who's Who. "Whatever this is," John found that he could breathe again at last. "It's none of your business. She's my wife."

"Let us not equivocate. We both know of Mary's past."

John's heart leaped almost out of his chest. " _And_..?" False bravado. Did Mycroft know it was Mary who... "She's left all that behind her."

Instead of answering directly, Mycroft enjoyed another sip of his tea. "Do you recognise the man in the photo?"

John studied the photo again carefully, his heart dancing between a pounding a repeat on his ribcage and getting lodged somewhere in his throat. The woman was Mary. She was wearing a scarf on her head and dark glasses but he'd know her anywhere. There was no doubt. The man...was a stranger. The two of them appeared to be in a coffee shop and the man was sitting unusually close to her. They sat on the same side of the booth in fact rather than opposing seats. Closer than would acquaintances. Closer than would even good friends.

"I don't recognise him, no. But she volunteers at Barts two days a week. He's...probably a co-worker?" He wasn't though. No.

Mycroft settled his hands in his lap. "Don't play naive John. It does not become you."

John thrust the photo back.

"You keep it." Mycroft said. "I know you're as curious about him as I am Doctor Watson. This is not any attempt to interfere in your domestic life, but an unknown element showing up suddenly in Mary's life without warning is...unusual to say the least, wouldn't you agree? In particular the life of a former assassin, _and_ the man showing up on the day Mary was supposed to be at the park with your lovely daughter Elicia."

John then realised that, no, Elicia was _not_ in the photo. Not anywhere that he had seen. Now his heart was pounding again, this time in fear. Goddamn Mycroft Holmes and his fucking games and his fucking intrigue! The man probably only masturbated while fondling his personal governments seal. Then John decided that he if the bastard _didn't_ wank off now and then, by God the needle-nosed swot ought to bloody _start!_

So just who the hell was the man and why had Mary felt it necessary to lie to him? And where had Elicia been if they were not at the park?

~!~!~

Part 5 asap


	5. Chapter 5

" **And When I Say 'Friend'..." Part 5**

By GE Waldo

 **Rating** : Mature but with some humour. Also murders n' stuff.

 **Pairing** : John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC and eventually Johnlock.

 **Summary** : John's new life makes him long for his old and Sherlock's new beau makes John just...jealous! Takes place in a possible future universe after John and Mary's baby has arrived.

 **Disclaimer** : Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.

 **Our trip out of town was cancelled due to copious amounts of rain! Who wants to sit outside by the camp fire when there** _ **IS**_ **no campfire because it** _ **WON'T STOP RAINING!?**_ **So instead here is the next installment...**

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

Mycroft's driver drops John off at his modest building just as Mary is walking up to the outer set of double doors. "Oh my god, that can't have been a good conversation." She says when she sees his face.

John fumbles for his keys but does not look at her. "A bit not good, yeah."

They take the elevator in silence other than Elicia who begins to cry for her afternoon feeding. Mary checks the clock when she enters the kitchen. "Oh, it is late, isn't it sweetie," She coo's to her fussing daughter. "Already after five."

Dumping her purse on the counter by the coffee machine, she straps Elicia into her high chair and temporarily distracts her daughter's hunger with a digestible cookie that swiftly turns to mush as she gums it and crumbles it apart in her uncoordinated fingers.

John, in the meantime, has shed his coat and retreated to their bedroom. Just so he can be alone for a few minutes. Sort his thoughts. Before he has to confront his wife about her mysterious rendezvous with a total stranger who, as far as he could tell from the photograph, was not so much a stranger in fact but someone Mary knows rather well.

But when he opens the bedroom door, he is confronted with something else completely unexpected.

A brand new shiny pram. In purple. Not Barney the Idiot dinosaur purple but the deeper, richer, absurdly expensive 'Royal Flush' purple you'd see on a custom Aston Martin. Which paint-job _alone_ you could never afford. "Mary..."

When she appeared with Elicia in her arms sucking on a bottle, she gasped. "What in the world..?"

John looked at her, his anger and fear momentarily forgotten as he stared at what had to be none other than an absurdly over-priced baby gift from Mycroft Holmes. The pram was filled with stuffed toys. There was also a play pen already set up and shoved into one corner. The two items filled almost every available square meter of the room the building manager had had the audacity to label as the flat's 'Master bedroom'.

"Mycroft?" Mary asked but it wasn't really a question.

John nodded, bristling. "Probably." The _last_ thing he was looking for from Mycroft Holmes was charity.

"Was _this_ what he wanted to talk to you about?" She twisted her lips in a fun way and then frowned a bit when John simply stared silently at the pram. Finally "No, it wasn't," he answered.

Her husband's discomfort with the generous gift was not lost on her. "Do we _have_ to give them back?" Mycroft Holmes was not exactly her favorite person in the world and she never felt comfortable around him but they were desperate for a decent pram and now they had a play-pen too and giving them back was obviously what John wanted but they were so _nice_. The pram was one of those three wheeled modern types that turned easily, with a touch of a finger. And it had cubby holes where a mother could tote snacks for her fussing baby; the cubbies even had water-proof lids that sealed with a snap. And there was two cup holders and a place for her to put at least two grocery bags on the lower level and a hook on which to hang her purse. And there was a detachable miniature baby carousel and a hinged toggling canopy to protect Elicia from the hot sun and a built-in rain cover that folded back accordion style with easy Velcro fasteners.

"But it's a Go-Go-Bunky-Baby- _4!"_ Mary said to John breathlessly as though that would explain all the reasons they should keep it.

"Go-Go- _Bunky_?" He repeated the barmy brand name and she tossed him a look that said 'men are _hopeless!'_

"This is _the_ dream pram, John."

"It's _Mycroft Holmes_ in our lives is what it is."

Mary laid her hands on it. "But we need it John," Mary pleaded and then laid down her trump card. " _Elicia_ needs it. We could _never_ afford this otherwise, and she deserves the best, doesn't she?"

John knew he was defeated before the argument had even begun. Yes, they needed one. Goddamn Mycroft Holmes and his bottomless pockets. " _This_ lets a maniacal ego-maniac into our private home." He said by way of warning but Mary could tell she had already won the discussion.

"He's _already_ in every part of our lives." Mary reasoned, not that she liked it. But the pram itself was perfect. "He is sort of Elicia's uncle."

John nearly choked. "Not bloody likely."

"He's Sherlock's brother." She reminded him.

"Believe me - I am well aware of _that_ bit of shite luck." John took a deep breath. Now was as good a time as any. "Fine, we'll keep the pram and the rest but Mary...um, we need to talk about something."

Mary stares at him for a fraction longer than someone with a clear conscience might. "Alright. But help me carry this play-pen into the sitting room first."

After putting Elicia in her crib with her bottle, they struggle with the cushioned bottomed, soft mesh thing with the collection of high-end stuffed dinosaurs already piled up inside it. They move a small magazine rack and a standing lamp to make room for it and Mary cautions that the outside mesh wall is sitting incorrectly. John asks which wall is the outside wall (as all the mesh sides appear to be the same to him), and Mary explains that 'on this particular side the mesh is thinner and is meant to look outward so Elicia can see everything'. So together they turn it so the thinner mesh side faces out. It fits rather well in the modestly sized room. They won't even be bumping their shins on it to get by which is a huge bonus as far as John is concerned.

Plus Elicia does deserve the best, even though it sticks a bit in his craw that he alone cannot afford to give her the very best. And being beholding to Mycroft Holmes is like walking around with a pebble in his shoe.

He sits down heavily on the couch. Feels the photo Mycroft gave him in his jeans pocket. Mary sits beside him. He pulls out the photo and watches the colour drain from her face when she sees it. With a swallow and a deep breath - "I can explain." She says.

"I hope so. Because you said you were at the park with Elicia."

"Well, I was, for a short bit. And I _was_ at the shops."

"Where did you manage to find time for a date with a total stranger, though I suppose not a stranger to _you_ , is he?"

Mary clasped her hands in her lap. "It wasn't a date John." She is still white and now she is shaking.

Like the way the wind changes in a hurricane, John's mood goes from suspicious and hurt to worried and suspicious _and_ in fear for what his wife might have got them all into. Fear for his daughter too. Because this, right now, is what it all feels like; as though they were all suddenly in danger. He didn't know a thing yet and still he felt that old, aching, Moriarty-on-the-breeze fear. "Who is he?" He asks. "Because this is not the seating arrangement of two people talking about the weather."

"Oh...god..." She breathes and swallows again and her eyes start watering. She takes his hand, reflexively. She was an assassin and he had no doubt that she had killed many people during her 'career', but in this she takes his hand because her fear is not for herself. Not this time. "I don't know what's going to happen if I tell you..."

"What do you think will happen if you don't?"

She licked her lips, knowing she could lose him. Knowing she probably _will_ lose him anyway. "He _made_ me do it. _They_ made me. I didn't _want_ to, god I _didn't_ \- I didn't want to, he didn't _deserve_ it, _neither_ of them does...oh _Christ_ , John, please believe me."

Yeah, danger...fear...all spot on. "Tell me everything Mary. Whatever it is, I know Sherlock -"

" _No!"_ She stood up, wrapped her arms around her torso – protection, comfort, sorrow, all of them. "Not Sherlock, God, not Sherlock, you don't understand...we can't tell Sherlock _anything_."

"Then _help_ me understand!" How could he ever believe that her past would not catch up to her? Because that's what this has to be. Something or someone finally reaching out a grasping arm from the deep murky lake that is his wife's former life to extract a price for her escaping from it. "What did you _do_?" He asked. "Oh Jesus, Mary, please... _what_ did you do?"

Tears flowed now although she was not blubbering. Mary never properly cried with tears and gasps and wiping at her nose with a tissue. At least John had never seen her do so. Her crying had always been brief. A few tears, a dab of fingers at her bottom eyelids and it would be over.

She was staring at him, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth and then she turned her head away and stared at the carpet. She could not look at him and in that instant his own fear and worry tripled.

"Anthony..." she whispered.

John thought he might topple over such was the shock at hearing those words. If he had heard her right. Had he? "What?" He needed to hear it again. Spelled out because this could not be. Mary would never have hurt Sherlock like that. Would she?

 _She shot him..._

A voice began whispering things in his ear. Always when things were threatening to turn dark and dangerous did the voice of that Irish madman rise from what John hoped was his cold, cold, lonely grave. His was the voice of the walking deranged. He was the High Specter of the dead and the patron saint of depravity. He was dead but, now and then, he still whispered from his prison in the earth. The fucker was ever present. Even dead.

 _She shot him and left without checking whether her shot was true; whether he would live or die...she shot him without a backward glance..._

Sherlock...? No. No...no, they were talking about Anthony. Mary was talking about _Anthony_. (When she finally decides to talk that is). So, no, _not_ Sherlock. Sherlock is alive and fine. He's fine, he's just _fine_. He _has_ to be fine. "Mary...?" He whispered. "Is...Tell me Sherlock's alright." John thought he himself might die, right there in their sitting room by the new playpen.

"Why are you asking me about Sherlock?" Mary asked. She seemed actually _perplexed_.

John groaned in the deepest part of his soul. And he argued with the voice in his head. 'But Mary called an ambulance! She saved his life. Sherlock survived. He's alive. He's home right now, alive and...and...he's _fine!_ ' Mary _liked_ Sherlock. She said it often.

 _Barely survived...His heart stopped, John, remember? He died..._

 _Sherlock died because of Mary..._

John rubbed at his head with his hands, dragging fingers through his hair and grasping tufts of it as though readying to yank it out. He felt as though all the good in their lives, in the world, had just been snuffed out. And all to the tune of a Moriarty-like giggle in the background, from out there in the evil darkness. The laugh of the truly insane.

"You shot Anthony." Not a question. A horrible, horrible truth. "You killed him. You took a _gun_ over to Baker Street and _shot_ Anthony."

A whisper again from somewhere not in the room. From that remembered and hated voice.

 _Right in Sherlock's sitting room John. Right there by_ your _chair..._

"Oh my god, Mary, how cou -" He swallowed the sick, bitter sludge that had forced its way up his esophagus. "How could you do tha-? Oh-my-god, oh-my-god... you _murdered_ Anthony...oh-my-god-Sherlock..." John felt like he was going to be sick.

 _Right between the eyes..._

Again it was Moriarty whispering in his ear.

 _Crack shot, your Mary, but she is definitely crazy, John..._

Mary came and sat beside him again and he moved away in a flash, jerking back from her touch this time as though she were red hot and he might get burned.

Mary moved away again, her yes watering.

But Mary Watson was nothing if not emotionally resilient. She grit her teeth and continued. "They _made_ me John. I had no _choice_. That man, his name is Raymond Blythe, he's...look I have no proof he is who he claimed to be but he said he's the illegitimate son of Charles Augustus Magnusson, he...he said Magnusson didn't acknowledge him as his son and that he'd spent the last ten years blackmailing Magnusson for money – to keep quiet about who he was. He says Magnusson got his mother pregnant during a trip to Sweden, his mother was the wife of a criminal there, some sort of weapons dealer running guns to the Taliban and he paid Raymond to stay hidden and keep quiet.

"Imagine if Magnusson had been exposed? His own claims over people would have ended instantly. No one would have given him any credit at all. I don't know all the details but Sherlock _killed_ Magnusson so Raymond's money, the money he was getting from dear old dad dried up and because he's never been acknowledged as his son on paper anywhere he has no claim to Magnusson's fortune. That's what he told me in the cafe'. He sat on the same side of the booth to scare me, I think, to control me. Raymond _can't_ inherit you see..." She looked away to the play-pen and wondered if she'd be in a position now to see Elicia playing in it. "I should have known Mycroft would have access to the cameras _inside_ the buildings too, the nosey _prick_."

Mary looked at John, imploring him to believe her. "He wanted Sherlock to die because Sherlock took his meal ticket away." She sighed. "He wanted to punish. I guess he's as greedy - and as crazy - as his father I s'pose."

Now John really thought he might be sick. Could hardly get his next words out. "So you went there...to kill _Sherlock_?" John could hardly believe this was his life. He was sitting in his own flat looking at a new playpen for his daughter given to them by his best friend's over-lording older brother talking to his former assassin wife about the man she just confessed to murdering and all for...what? This _cannot_ be his life!

But even Mary, he knew, would not kill someone just because she was asked. "They had Elicia? Right? _He_ did?"

At the mentioned of their daughter, her lip trembled. She nodded. "Sherlock wasn't home...but Anthony was there."

 _She_ was _going to kill Sherlock..._

"Anthony...he recognised you, didn't he?"

 _Again..._

Once more she nodded. "I think he might have but...Blythe had Elicia. His goons had her. He said - he _promised_ that if I didn't do as he asked, he'd _kill_ her." She sat back against the couch cushions, exhausted. "I had no choice. I _had_ to do it. I...I killed him. I was so glad it wasn't Sherlock but he, but Blythe said he wanted to hear the shot and he wanted to see the ambulance pull up to 221B and that if he didn't...he had our _daughter_ John...I _had_ to do it."

"How did they get to you? How did Blythe..." John paused to let the swell of murderous fury flow through him and out. Because at that moment he wanted to run from the flat, search for and locate Raymond Blythe and beat him with his fists until his head caved in. "How did he get his hands on Elicia?" On my beautiful, innocent, trusting, helpless, lovely, sweet, fragile, perfect daughter Elicia. She had _bruises_ on her arm. They had _hurt_ her. Damaged the soft flesh of his precious girl. Made her _cry_. John felt the keen need to rip someone's head from their shoulders.

"A car, like the one Mycroft is always riding around in," Mary was explaining, "pulled up and I..."

Oh fuck-fuck-fuck! "You thought it was Mycroft so you got in." John said his voice becoming toneless. Flat and rasping. Because this was too much. It was just far, far too much to take in. Not only had Mary murdered Sherlock's first, and possibly only, love; a man who might have been _the_ love of Sherlock's life, but then a stranger, a greedy, miserable coil-of-shite barely passing as a human being bastard had had his dirty hands on his four month old daughter. _His_ Elicia. "But you noticed too late that it wasn't Mycroft."

"No, it wasn't."

 _It could have been Sherlock John. Mary went there to kill_ Sherlock _..._

"Blythe must have learned about you from Magnusson." John reasoned. He was shaking at his core. The last time he had felt that shaking, that tremor deep inside, an earth-quaking of human-sized proportions, had been when he was about to enter his first field battle in Afghanistan. Right now he was _that_ scared, and _that_ angry and _that_ ready. For battle.

 _It_ would _have been Sherlock..._

Mary nodded and wiped at her eyes. "Yes. He mentioned seeing his father twice in ten years: the first time to arrange his little blackmail scheme, the second to get him drunk. Magnusson couldn't hold his liquor it seems. Gloated about me and others. Gloated about his hold over people." She sucked in a shaking sigh and let it out, and whispered "He would have killed Elicia...he would have killed her...I believed him..."

 _John. Are you listening? Had Sherlock been home..._

John wiped at his eyes, trying to bring some life back into them.

 _It_ would _have been Sherlock lying there in his own gore John...John?_

"What are we going to do?"

 _Jo-o-h-h-h-n-n-n..._

John was reeling. Anthony was dead by Mary's hand. By a - "Where's the gun?"

Mary had slipped into a mentally neutral gear. Idling. No forward momentum from here. Not now _. Now after I've cut John deeper than ever. Not after I've hurt Sherlock at his heart even though he doesn't know it yet. For the second time. John'll want to tell him. John will_ have _to tell him. John loves me but not_ , _never as deeply, as he's loved Sherlock since the day they met. Sherlock, in all the most important ways, will always come first. I am John's valley of refuge. Sherlock was, is and always will be his canyon of adventure, danger and all-body elation._

Only one being could possibly eclipse either of them and that was Elicia. His daughter was the princess who held the kingdom of his heart in her tiny hand. Mary had never felt so tired in all her life. "What?"

"The gun. The one you _used_ – where is it?"

"No one will find it."

"Was it yours or his?"

Mary seemed stuck on the question. "You have _your_ service weapon too."

John wanted to slap her. For the first time in their marriage, in all the time he'd known her...

 _But it's not been_ that _much time really, has it Johnny-boy? Not long at all..._

"Do not insult me by using that term to describe the gun you used to -" He bit his tongue. " _Where_ is it?"

"It's in my purse." She said cheekily but then shook her head. Now was not the time. "I threw it in the Thames. I'm not _stupid_."

 _But she is a liar, John. Oh that_ wife _of yours! She's still a big, fat liar..._

Did he believe her? He didn't know. After today, he honestly didn't know if he could ever again believe anything coming out of her mouth. "Good. That's...good." He guessed. He didn't rightly know if it was good or bad. He hadn't a fucking clue.

 _Where is Elicia..?_

That was his own conscience, his own voice, telling him to run and check on his daughter and he immediately stood up to do just that. When Mary rose too, instinctively knowing that was what he intended, and insisting - "I'll check on her." _That_ was when his last nerve finally snapped. Just like a twig after too long under the desert sun.

 _Sna-a-p_ _ **!**_ "No! _You_ stay right there." He shouted. "How the hell can I even bloody trust a thing you say anymore!?"

~!~!~

When Mycroft shut down the video feed, he leaned back to think about all he had witnessed and heard taking place at the Watson residence. The camera on the pram and the playpen were both working perfectly.

Of course they were. Only the very best technicians in his employ. He poured out a second tumbler of fifty-year-old Scotch. This was a two whiskey problem he decided. A one whiskey problem was yet another Middle East skirmish or a crucial trade disagreement between this second world nation and that one. A more serious situation that called for deeper contemplation required two whiskeys, a problem such as a terrorist attack on London or one of its close allies.

A three whiskey problem, well, that was something far more deadly. The world standing on the brink of World War Three, a nearly successful assassination attempt of their Prime Minister...

Or Sherlock's life in peril in some backwater prison in a volatile former Soviet state such as...Serbia.

Considering all he had just heard; this just might become a three whiskey problem.

Mycroft's phone rang. He knew who it was before he pressed the button. "Sherlock. I told you to relax for a few days." Advice that had never worked in the past either.

"Anything?"

Mycroft sighed into his phone. "And what would you do with the information if there were? Vigilantism is not a recommended path for the recently repatriated. You've just gotten your life back Sherlock; don't throw it away on mere requital. It's vulgar."

"So there _is_ something."

Mycroft allowed a few seconds of personal regret. He'd taught his little brother a bit too well. "I am gathering information." He admitted as vaguely as he dared.

"Which you will hand over to me."

"When it's finished...percolating." Mycroft smiled into the phone. Sherlock being left to stew was always a risky move but in this instance he really did have Sherlock's best interests at heart; his little brother's heart being the interest in question, and its remarkable fragility. Extraordinary. Even after all these years and lessons. Quite extraordinary.

"Mycroft..."

Ah, exasperation. A _win_. Sherlock would wait. He knew he'd get more out of his older and (if he would be honest just once), much wiser brother if he showed a modicum of patience. "Sherlock..." Mycroft clucked with barely restrained pique, "Have some tea. Smoke a cigarette. I'll call you when I know more." _When I've decided what to do._

"Text me. I hate talking on the phone."

"Yes, I am cognizant of your hermetic tendencies. Very well then, I shall text."

Mycroft ended the call and spent a moment draining his glass. The whiskey settled his thoughts somewhat. Necessary on occasion, he'd found, to his thinking processes. And far less harmful than Sherlock's back alley 'therapies' of choice. Mary was a murderer and not for the first time. Technically she had murdered Sherlock, intentions not-with-standing. Sherlock had died. There was no getting around that.

But for his agreement with Sherlock regarding the entire sordid affair. Damn Sherlock and his demand for carefully worded promises. But his agreement with Sherlock was for events already past.

Mary's murder of Anthony Williams, incidental as it was, demanded recompense. For the simple fact that she had gone to Baker Street to murder Sherlock. Motivations aside, he could not let that pass.

As to Raymond Blythe's tenuous future, he would most certainly get his due. Mycroft would hardly need to lift a finger there. Sherlock would ensure the man never set foot among the living again via the good works of DI Lestrade and his competent team of policeman and the court system. By no means perfect but it was the only one they had at present and by degrees he was effecting improvements in that course at every turn.

Blythe would pay dearly for his sloppy vengeance. A pathetic man, really. No ambition of his own at all. Consumed by greed.

Worst of all, Blythe had touched – he had injured – his to-all-intents-and-purposes-if-not-genetically facto niece. That was worthy of a good measure of retribution in itself.

Because _nobody_ fucks with Mycroft Holmes's family and gets away with it.

~!~!~!~

He'd started smoking again, well, a while ago in fact when he was on the continent. And it was better than the alternative. John could never understand that. It was the doctor in him Sherlock supposed.

But cigarette's...

They gave him something to do when it seemed nothing in the whole miserable brain-stupefying, heart-drowning existence that was the world would. Fags kept his hands busy and his lungs full of acrid, harmful, wonderfully dangerous smoke. Passive suicide. Quasi-intentional self-harm. It helped.

Anthony hadn't smoked. He'd quit years before meeting and falling in love with Sherlock Holmes. The man ought to have had his head examined. Who in their right mind after all, falls in love with a sociopath who lives on tea and biscuits and mind puzzles while sniffing at dead bodies and running on no sleep at all? For days and days on end?

What sort of _idiot_ falls in love _that_ that sort of _idiot_?

Sherlock walked through the London night and found himself - _inexplicably!_ \- On a tube travelling in the direction of Stratford. John and Mary lived in Stratford. John, Mary and Elicia. Sherlock had not seen Elicia for many weeks.

It was late in the evening, going on after eight. Not a proper time for an unannounced visit. But they ought to know Sherlock by now. He doesn't call ahead. Calling was boring. He hated calling anyway. It did not occur to Sherlock that texting ahead might be an acceptable alternative, but Sherlock did not subscribe to self-development or the odious notion of altering ingrained and socially unacceptable habits – not _most_ of the time anyway; he _had_ after all stopped using cocaine and he _had_ stopped drugging John and he _had_ ceased sleeping in drug dens just for the purpose of information-gathering or to manipulate the press – that had to count for something.

Sherlock dug out a tiny tin of mint-flavoured nicotine gum from the deep left pocket of his Belstaf and popped it in his mouth, chewing it quickly. The faint mint odor wouldn't fool John of course, the cigarette smoke will be on his clothes and on the obvious stains (obvious is you were both looking _and_ observing that is), on the tips of his right fingers but if he takes the mint then John will do the following: he will smell the cigarette smoke and then the faint mint odor and then ask Sherlock if he thinks he's fooling anyone by trying to cover up the cigarette smoke with a mint and then Sherlock can say that it's mint-flavoured nicotine gum and then John will smile and be happy with him because Sherlock is clearly once again _trying_ to quit.

Child's play. But John only asks because he cares. John has always loved him, Sherlock thinks. He's pretty sure about that. Would never _ask_ of course. _Ridiculous._ And why think it about it anyway? Useless waste of time. John has Mary and she has John and they both love him. Somewhat.

He's pretty sure about that. Not the way Anthony loved him but hardly anyone's ever loved him that way so that's not overly-troubling. John saved his life after all and Mary convinced John to start talking to Sherlock again after he came home from the continent. And she aimed for the least vulnerable part of his liver. And her warning to him in the hospital was understandable from her point-of-view. She was protecting her own. She was protecting John.

Everyone ought to protect John. John was necessary to the world even if the world was too blind or too stupid to see it. The world was a much better place with John in it. London was much, _much_ better and that was really something because Sherlock adored London-Before-John.

But London-With-John is a brighter place, full of stars and snowflakes and warm pipes of sun hugging the pavement, and rain drops falling like a symphony of strings in his ears. Things he had not noticed when London was just London-and-Sherlock.

John was the best zoning revitalization ever. Sherlock could look out from his window at night (pre and post Anthony) and imagine John somewhere in the city and feel instantly better. Not so much like he wanted to crawl out of his skin and not so hungry for a high as he had been the previous minute. John was good for him. Even from all the way over in Stratford.

And Elicia liked him, he thought. As inexplicable as he always found that bit of knowledge. But it was true anyway. _She always squeals_ _when I visit_. So Elicia seemed to like him as well. But she's still just a baby. But baby's love tall people, don't they? He's observed it. A tall person walks into the room and babies look up in astonishment. If that's not love, or at least admiration, what is?

Anthony had been a different revitalization than John. John had affected all of London and Sherlock.

Anthony...

He wouldn't think about Anthony anymore. It was sentiment. Which was stupid. And nothing ever came of it. Which was worse. Instead he'd think about nothing until he arrived at John and Mary's flat. That was better. Lights in the tunnel flashed by. He counted them. He always counted. Counting was a _kind_ of nothing.

He was hungry. Had he eaten today? He couldn't remember. No matter. Perhaps Mary had scones on hand. Now he was thinking about food. Another kind of nothing.

And coffee. He wanted coffee.

A scone would be nice.

~!~!~!~!~!~

Part 6 asap


	6. Chapter 6

" **And When I Say 'Friend'..." Part 6**

By GE Waldo

 **Rating** : Mature but with some humour. Also murders n' stuff.

 **Pairing** : John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC and eventually Johnlock.

 **Summary** : John's new life makes him long for his old and Sherlock's new beau makes John just...jealous! Takes place in a possible future universe after John and Mary's baby has arrived.

 **Disclaimer** : Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.

 _ **Hastily edited my lovely readers. Busy, busy weekend!**_

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

Sherlock emerged to street level at Stratford Station and walked the short distance to where a cab could always be found. There were three lined up along Station Street near the dead end, waiting for passengers. As he approached one, three men emerged from the way of Farthingale Walk and quickly approached him. Sherlock recognised one of them.

"Harris? What does Mycroft want now?"

"Information, he said," He glanced at his fellow goons. "He said to pick you up."

"Obviously," Sherlock muttered. But information – _finally!_ "Very well." A visit with John and Mary would have to wait.

~!~!~

"What the hell are you playing at!?" Sherlock paced the room. This was not his brother's very square, official digs in one of London's high towers (his office that positively screamed status and power), nor was it his tastefully decorated personal flat in Pall Mall, nor even his stuffy old club crowded with old men dripping with old money. _This_ was a bloody stone cold room somewhere in the basement of one of Mycroft's insufferable government funded bolt-holes. This was a veritable modern-age dungeon. "Why are you keeping me here?"

Mycroft watched his younger brother pace the short space of concrete floor with all the patience of a man used to a life-time of Sherlock Holmes' emotional outbursts. "It's for your own good brother dear." Mycroft gestured to a stiff backed chair opposite to the one he was currently occupying. The only illumination in the room was a single overhead bulb beating down on them with its feeble 60 watt glow. "Do sit down, Sherlock. Let us discuss this situation calmly."

Sherlock, knowing that it was useless to try the doorknob (again), as Mycroft's goons had locked it from the outside, took the seat, crossing his arms. He stared across the dismal grey room at his brother in his dismal grey suit with undisguised resentment.

Mycroft took it all in stride, well used to Sherlock's emotionalism. "I think you already know quite well why you're here and not at John and Mary's flat," Mycroft said shrewdly. "Don't you?"

Sherlock stared at a spot on the wall passed Mycroft's aristocratic nose, and not directly at him just because he knew it irritated Mycroft no end. When Mycroft sighed, it was a small satisfaction at least. It didn't make up for being lied to and plucked off the street like a common delinquent but at least he felt better. _Some_ control was better than none.

"Well?" Mycroft examined the tip of his umbrella. Sherlock sniffed. _Ridiculous ponce! An umbrella indoors, in a basement with no windows no less._ "Yes, I am _aware_." Sherlock ground out between clenched teeth. "As you are that I wish to settle it in my _own_ way." He kicked at Mycroft's chair leg but his foot fell a few inches short, robbing him of the satisfaction of seeing Mycroft roll his eyes. Instead the bastard smirked, though just barely _. It probably hurts his jaw to smile; the strain of it._ Sherlock thought in-graciously.

Mycroft tilted his head, studying his younger and much less in control of his own emotions brother, realising something. "I've been your brother a long time Sherlock and I can see that you really _aren't_ aware, are you?" He mused aloud. "Not _really_."

Leaving his umbrella leaning against the arm of his chair Mycroft stood and stretched his arms a bit. It was a decidedly human gesture and did much to shed his image of an emotionless government-funded conservatively dressed ogre. "I see..." He whispered just loud enough to be overheard. "You've been trying, unsuccessfully of course, to _fool_ me into believing you actually know what's going on but you don't. You just want to get out of here and find out for yourself, although you do suspect. Certainly that, yes, you _suspect_ but all the same you _wish_ for it to be untrue."

Sherlock sighed heavily. "What are you going on about Mycroft? Tell me or -"

"Yes?" Mycroft asked pleasantly, "Or _what_?"

Sherlock bristled under that knowing gaze. _Yes_ , or what? Or just...nothing. Sherlock knew, or _nothing_. What would he do? Beat up his older brother right there? Refuse to speak to him ever again? Too juvenile even for him. Steal from him? Already done plenty of times. Boring. And Mycroft wouldn't care. "What do you have to tell me?" Sherlock finally asked after dismissing all the alternatives. Besides, he really did want to know. Because he himself didn't know what it was he suspected he _might_ know. He only had a gut feeling, a thing John called instinct which Sherlock had always scoffed at as unscientific. Reason was the course but reason was failing him. Which bothered him relentlessly.

Always where John was concerned his reason sometimes failed. Not often, but sometimes. Even more bothersome was that he found he didn't _care_ when the reason was John. John circumvented his reason. John wriggled through his shield of science, burrowing his short, trim frame and friendly smile deep into Sherlock's carefully hidden layer of human sentiment. _Into your heart, Holmes - into your soul! And you know it. John has your soul._

Instead of answering directly, Mycroft leaned against the rough wall, crossed his legs at the ankles and settled down to converse. It was a Mycroft tell. He was about to talk straight with his little brother, out of _concern_ , and it always set Sherlock's nerves on edge. _Real_ talk. _Truth_ from Mycroft Holmes. Always things he didn't want to hear. Yet he'd listened because, as much as it stuck in his craw, Mycroft was almost always right. So he'd listen now.

"What have your street sources garnered for you about Anthony's death? Anything at all?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Very little."

"It's because I asked them not to tell you."

Sherlock was stunned. "I _beg_ your pardon?"

Unflappable - "I asked them not to tell you. I told them it would hurt you - deeply."

Sherlock was stunned to his core. His connections, his 'rats' listening to - obeying _Mycroft?_ "What the _hell_ are you talking about? I'm not _hurt_. _Nothing_ hurts me. I'm perfectly _fine_. Get to the point Mycroft - what _is_ all this?"

"What you've suspected for several days at least I'm sure. Even if your minions had learned nothing, they would have reported such back to you but they didn't and not just because I asked them not to. I think you already suspect why."

Mycroft actually looked _sad_ for him and for Sherlock that was intolerable. He could take a lot of things from his overbearing git of a sibling but pity was not one of them. _Pity_ was out-of-the-question. Still, truth was at the heart of science and scientific truth was a great part of his chosen profession, therefore -

"Mary..." Sherlock said quietly.

Mycroft nodded, clearly satisfied with Sherlock's admittance. "Yes, Mary."

"She killed Anthony." Truth. A truth that had been squatting at the edges of his mind for many days, poking a finger here and there at his boarded up mind palace, jesting with glee, _laughing_ at him.

"Yes."

"But she had impetus." An agitator - a provocateur. Mary'd had _reason_.

"Not a valid excuse but never-the-less correct."

"She _had_ to do it."

"Not as much but perhaps...incentive."

"I was supposed to be there."

"Again, yes."

"She was sent to kill me."

"And I cannot let that pass, Sherlock," Mycroft assured him. "Not this time."

Sherlock stared up at his brother. At one time he had called Mycroft the most dangerous man in Britain and he had not been taking the piss. For good reason Mycroft Holmes was dangerous. He was not only largely responsible for keeping the peace between nations; he shouldered the decision making on how that peace was to be maintained. At times, it meant removing people - from London, from the nation and sometimes, from the planet. "But what about -"

" _John?"_ Mycroft took his seat again, crossing his hands in his lap. No fidgeting. He was as calm and as in control as a jaguar about to leap from an overhanging branch onto the vulnerable spine of its unsuspecting prey. "Do you _really_ want John living out his life with such a woman? She has lied to him for the second time; willing to murder you in cold blood rather than rely on anyone. She could have confided in John at any time after the incident. She could texted you, or me. Instead she chose to act and keep those actions to herself. Foolishly, in fact as it quickly became clear to me who had visited your flat that day. Mary is a dangerous woman. She is untrustworthy."

"You mean you have –?"

"No. No cameras, not at Baker Street. However your street 'rats' did see something after all: a woman leaving 221B Baker Street on the day in question. A woman in a scarf and non-descript clothing. A blonde woman matching Mary Watson's physical weight, height and general appearance. She was crying."

"She didn't _want_ to do it." Useless plea. John would be sad again. He hated to see John sad.

"That is neither here nor there. She murdered an innocent man. She went there to murder _you_ , and I will _not_ let that pass."

"Mycroft, please..."

"What? Do you really want John living with such a woman? Raising his daughter with her? And remember, her mission ultimately _failed_. You are alive and another is dead in your place. What makes you think the person behind the act, the person behind Mary, will not wish to try again?"

He had no reason to believe it would not be so. He _knew_ that. Reason told him so. "What are you going to do?"

"I fulfilled our agreement but that was for Mary's _past_ actions. This is a different time, Sherlock. I'm going to have her picked up and taken somewhere safe where she shall be questioned and then..."

Sherlock waited with baited breath. "And _then_...?"

"You can, to some extent, be in on the final decision if you like. I know John's...feelings are important to you. You do not want to see him hurt beyond recovery."

"This will destroy him."

Mycroft took a deeply satisfying breath. He always felt better when he got what he wanted without too much coercion. "I think you under-estimate your Doctor Watson. Or perhaps, in another way, you _over_ -estimate him?"

Sherlock frowned. He hated Mycroft's tendency to be cryptic. A hold-over from their child-hood games. "Speak plainly."

"John already knows Sherlock. He knows it was Mary and he knows she was sent there to kill you." Mycroft saw the knowledge sink in. He watched it go home and make a bed in Sherlock's mind, and in his heart.

"Cameras..." Sherlock said. "...On the pram and the play-pen." Sherlock had asked Mycroft to provide those for John and Mary, and he also recalled his reasons. He'd wanted John and Mary to have the best (John deserved the best – always), but he had no idea what that entailed (Sherlock Holmes being seen at Dragon's or Nursery Window shopping for a pram?), and no idea how to go about choosing a thing so foreign to his senses and experience as a baby carriage! In-so-much as he had had asked Mycroft to arrange it and take the money out of his trust to pay for it all - to the tune of eight hundred pounds. Who knew the price such baby accoutrements might exact?

"What about John?" John knew. _He didn't come to me. He didn't tell me. Why didn't he tell me?_

" _This_ again? Your maudlin loyalty to John is wearisome Sherlock. We are speaking of a murderer and her master."

"My loyalty to John is not maudlin. Something you might understand had you ever-"

"'Experienced friendship'? Believe me dear brother I have been _wholly_ content without it. Enough talk of friendship, it is irrelevant. Let us use reason. Mary has attempted your life for the second time." At Sherlock's faint surprise, Mycroft smiled to himself. "We both know I am no fool brother. As you know I did _not_ buy into your ridiculous theory that her shooting of you was a surgical attempt to 'prevent you from following her, save John and minimize the risk to your life'. Rubbish! Did you tell me that to protect her or to protect your own heart, after all? I am, rather, convinced she was playing to probabilities - ergo she took that shot _expecting_ you to die and when you didn't found your refusal to do so particularly _inconvenient."_

"Mary called an ambulance."

"Because she knew that she might need to play the sorrowing, reluctant assassin for John's benefit and yours. Come now Sherlock, you know I cannot let this pass."

"You could if you wanted to." But is that what he himself wanted? Anthony is dead. Anthony...good and kind Anthony...

"No, Sherlock, I've indulged your...compassion for this woman and your, shall we say, dedication to John's happiness, however maudlin it is, but this situation has made Mary in all likelihood worked for Moriarty at one point - nearly everybody _did_."

Sherlock bit his lip. "Not death." He said at last. "You can't kill her. She was trying to protect John and the baby. Most especially the baby - Elicia."

Mycroft nodded, satisfied with Sherlock's responses and his thought processes. "Well reasoned little brother. It was most likely as you say. I have a weather-eye on who was behind it all but we have not seized him yet."

"And when you do?"

"Don't you want to know who it is?"

"No..."

Well, yes, but no. Not important. It's always easier to dispatch a total stranger. Better to not know his name. He learned that lesson well on the Continent. Seven people. He'd killed seven people though admitted to killing only three. Even Mycroft doesn't know about the other four. One in fact had been an accident. He had not felt right about that one. For a long time he had not felt right. Had not slept for a week. Disturbing, killing someone when you don't _mean_ it. When you make a _mistake_. That's why he understood Mary. That's why he didn't want her to die. She made a mistake. So easy to do when you're under that kind of pressure.

That's why shooting Magnusson _was_ an easy decision. So easy, really, to aim and pull a trigger. Surprisingly easy. Especially when it's clear the person deserves to die. Especially when they're a soulless, heartless monster.

Someone _does_ deserve to die for Anthony. Anthony was a good man. Anthony said he loved Sherlock. No one had ever said that before. Not in that way. Not even mummy – once they were older. When they were small children perhaps she had said it. Undoubtedly, though he possessed no specific memory of it.

"...this shadow assassin's reasoning was obviously unsound and his research poorly conducted otherwise how could he have made such an amateur mistake as shooting the wrong man?" Sherlock finished.

Shooting Anthony. Having _Mary_ shoot Anthony. _Murder him. An innocent. A lovely man who, on our last night together, had whispered that he 'was pretty much in love with' me._ No other had ever said the words while tenderly kissing him. No one had ever held him tightly, as Anthony had, and told him how wonderful he was and how lucky he was to have found him. No one had made him feel so indescribably adored as had Anthony while at the same time granting him such respect too. Even John's words (as heartfelt and loving, after a fashion, as they had been), had not made him feel the way Anthony had.

Anthony had been singularly special, Sherlock had come to realise. He ought to have said the words back. He hadn't even taken Anthony to bed and loved him with his body the way he had deserved, the way _normal_ people would have done; would have shown affection. What sort of man was he that he had not recognised how important Anthony had become to him, and now it was too late?

Suddenly Sherlock found himself suffused with envy over Mycroft's ability to endure such a heartless world without suffering the emotional travails of sentiment. Mycroft walked through life with a content, and smug, superiority not even Sherlock (in all his years struggling to emulate Mycroft's admirable control), had managed to achieve.

 _How lucky he is._

Sentiment - the domain of _fools!_ What a waste of energy it all was. Emotion, affection, love – intolerable! Because already Sherlock was losing the tactile memories of Anthony's hands on his skin and his strong lips all over his own, and on his face and torso. Already Anthony was becoming just another memory. And in its own way that was intolerable as well! What a stupid, stupid man he had been, to allow himself to succumb to the world's oldest trick. He would not allow his heart to be contorted in this fashion any longer. He ought to be a cut above such trite. He ought to be a _wall._ He was Sherlock Holmes. The balance needed to be restored. "Mycroft, I want -"

"No need to say anything Sherlock," Mycroft raised a hand and nodded. "Of course,' he added, "you may do as you like with this –for lack of a better descriptive – 'master-mind' – once we've extracted whatever information he may hold, which I suspect is very little. Afterward do as you will, though naturally with _extreme_ discretion."

"Can I get out of here now?" What was he to do about John now? Was John going to love him after this? Why hadn't John come to him? He must be terribly conflicted _._ I _would be._

Mycroft was ready to acquiesce but – "That depends where you are planning to go."

"Home," Sherlock felt tired. Very, very tired. And he wanted to smoke cigarettes until he couldn't hardly _breathe_ anymore! "I want to go home."

Because everything else including love - he had been soundly reminded - was pain.

Mycroft rose and tapped his umbrella on the solid metal door. A series of locks were unfastened. Mycroft turned to his younger brother. "Sherlock, about Anthony...I am sorry for your loss, I know you were... _fond_ of him. I've found a suitable Memorial garden and I can have the details taken care of if you wish?"

Sherlock paused at the now opened door. "I...he...Anthony had no family." He had not said his name aloud in some time. It felt...unsettling. But he would go to whatever funeral service Mycroft arranged because no one as good as Anthony ought to be put in the ground without someone there to...do whatever it is people do at funerals. Stand around and look suitable sober or sad he supposed. What use were they really? But even though he did not believe in any after-life, he would go. Anthony would want him there. It was the least he could do. The only act left. And then he would say goodbye to mortal weakness. "Thank you."

~!~!~!~

Just as Sherlock was butting out his fourteenth cigarette of the evening and contemplating perhaps securing something much, much stronger to settle his nerves, a soft knock at the door snapped him out of what had been creeping up on him as a black depression. Dangerous, he knew, were his depressions. One had hit him on the Continent that had nearly derailed his entire Dismantling Moriarty operation, but Mycroft, from his high British tower, had helped him connect with a discreet doctor of medicine and some _very_ good pills. In less than ten days he'd been back to normal – or normal enough to continue without further disruption from his inconveniently malfunctioning adrenal and pituitary glands.

"Come," Sherlock said, loudly enough he thought.

The door opened to reveal a white as a proverbial ghost John, who closed the door after him, and Sherlock knew exactly what had happened.

"Mycroft has collected Mary then?"

John walked over to his old chair like a man to his execution, with one foot deliberately in front of the other, managing only a nod. Sherlock could see the tell-tale signs of weeping in John's now stoic face. Reddened eyes; tear tracks. John had not washed before coming here. He hadn't the energy left.

"I'm sorry John."

John looked over at his friend, half astonished, half embarrassed and if he'd had third half, devastated by guilt. " _You're_ sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. Mary killed Anthony." Yet more tears, but ignored like a good British soldier. "She deserves what she gets now. I can't help her." He fiddled with loose threads on the chair's padded arm. "I won't help her."

Sherlock thought he knew just how to alleviate John's grief. "Help me bring justice to the man who manipulated the entire thing." He offered. "Help me set a few things right."

John stared into his old friend's eyes. Eyes as intelligent and shrewd as ever and yet sheltering other things in their crystal depths; grief for one and all the more obvious for its quietude. And anger. A transparent, uncomplicated fury simmering behind the iced-over twin silver moons of his irises. "This is my fault John. I was the one who killed Magnusson. We can't help Mary and Anthony is gone. So help me put what's left _right_ again."

John sighed. It was heavy with sorrow and laced with exhaustion, but there beside him all the same. The very presence of John Watson carried weight and power. He was soldier after all, staggering to his feet once more after a battle fought well but ultimately lost. Lost, but not forever. The war, _their_ war with London as the battlefield, went on as it always did. "I'm all yours Sherlock."

~!~!~

Sherlock made some excellent tea, much to John's frank disbelief. It was even good and Sherlock watched with private satisfaction as John finished his second cup. "So, tell me, what's your plan?" He asked. The tea had restored some of John's solid countenance and his eyes, though still red, were brighter.

Sherlock felt the weight of Anthony's death and all that had happened since shift sideways, off his shoulders a bit, once more. "Did Mycroft tell you what's going to happen to Mary?"

John nodded. "He lent me that much respect at least, although he didn't exactly leave me any choice in the matter; in the decision." John stared into his empty tea-cup. "He said he'd always known about Mary; she being the one who shot you. I did often wonder about that." John looked over at Sherlock who was now sitting opposite him. _Here we are again_ John thought to himself, privately musing on the remarkable constitution of the universe. He and Sherlock Holmes back again where they'd begun. Back at Baker street in their chairs. Together. John wondered if the universe understood something that he didn't. _Maybe this is where I always belonged._ Even when Sherlock wasn't around, Baker Street had felt like where he'd left his heart. Even while living with Mary, their flat over in Stratford had felt more like a hotel. Temporary. Transient.

Not _home._

"Yes, he knew." Sherlock confirmed. "That was the other - and final - part of our agreement; his promise not to touch Mary; to leave you both alone."

"That's why you forgave him?" John wondered how he had missed this part of his so-called sociopathic friend all these years. How had he not seen the self sacrificing heart of Sherlock Holmes under all those pricey shirts? "Sherlock," John said, "I don't know how I can ever repay you for -"

"Let's not speak of it." Sherlock said quickly. Soonest forgotten, soonest mended. His mother had often said it and presently it seemed the best course. "Mycroft assured me that his people will track down the man in question – Magnusson's illegitimate son no less, very soon. He's agreed to leave the...other details to me, or rather us. We shall decide his fate."

"I want this man brought to justice, by whatever means necessary." John declared quietly.

Sherlock smiled warmly. The first smile in weeks that felt natural, that had sprung to his face of its own accord.

John did not fail to note it. "Sherlock...do you mind if I stay here for a while? I just...I don't want to be at our flat. Not now."

"Elicia is with Harry?"

John nodded. "I don't want her to know, she's too young anyway, about me and Mary – what she's done I mean. I want to protect her from...all this." He wasn't sure how he was going to accomplish that yet but one horrific thing at a time.

"Your room is as you left it." Sherlock said. "Although I think Martha's been in there a few times, dusting furiously."

John chuckled at that. "Good to know."

~!~!~!~

Part 7 asap


	7. Chapter 7

" **And When I Say 'Friend'..." Part 7**

By GE Waldo

 **Rating** : Mature but with some humour. Also murders n' stuff.

 **Pairing** : John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC and eventually Johnlock.

 **Summary** : John's new life makes him long for his old and Sherlock's new beau makes John just...jealous! Takes place in a possible future universe after John and Mary's baby has arrived.

 **Disclaimer** : Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

 _ **O! M! G!**_ So late this is - sorry. Trying...I really am.

~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~

Sherlock drew yet another cigarette out of his pack but John's hands closed around his and he snatched both the cigarette and the half empty pack away, saying "Enough. God's sake, Sherlock, this room is _blue_." He made his point further by coughing, tossing the cigarettes into the kitchen bin and then proceeded to open the narrow kitchen window and also the twin windows in the sitting room. "God, we need to air this place out." He declared, waving his hands around as though that would help dispel the smoke. "You're killing me."

Sherlock ignored John in favour of his phone which began vibrating in his pocket.

John ceased his hand theatrics and turned, waiting to hear what Sherlock might say. 221B had been far too quiet that day thus far, Sherlock hardly saying a word. Since the moment he had gotten up, already showered and dressed, he had gulped down numerous coffees followed by several cups of tea. John had scrambled eggs and made toast, neither of which Sherlock had come near. John was frankly concerned about the sleuth's heart. With all that caffeine it had to be fluttering like a bird's wing. John had finally brought out the big guns and tiptoed down to Martha's flat begging for some of her Sherlock approved scones.

With the application of a little blueberry jam, Sherlock had then noticed food had somehow appeared in the flat and it was the sort he really liked. John had watched with secret delight that his plan had worked while his friend proceeded to wolf down two of them. There was something distinctly satisfying in watching Sherlock eat. The man didn't eat enough most days. When on a case he was like a kid at the playground; too distracted by all the fun to remember to eat, but when he finally did remember – or was presented with something he couldn't resist – he ate with a kind of child-like surprise, as though he'd forgotten how good it could taste.

Sherlock read the text. "Mycroft's team has been unable and I quote "To locate Raymond Blythe."

John stared, a bit stunned. "Really?"

Sherlock stuffed his hone back in his trouser pocket, pressing his lips tightly together. "It's just a collection of idiots unable to find another idiot. I suppose I ought not to be surprised – God, I detest all this waiting." Sherlock spun in a circle as though his own flat was suddenly a terrible affront to his mental health. "First Lestrade and now Mycroft. I could find him in an hour if they'd let me in on the damn _case_." He snarled, pacing back and forth.

"Can't Mycroft do anything?" John asked, not really expecting an answer. When Sherlock is in a strop, there was no calming him.

But this time it seemed to do the trick. "Mycroft..." He whipped out his phone and typed out a text, his thumbs a blur. It wasn't more than twenty seconds before he got a response. Reading it - "I have to go." He announced. Slipping on his coat, Sherlock made a motion as though to simply leave the flat without further comment and then with his right hand fisted around the doorknob, he said quietly over his shoulder. "John...would you, that is, perhaps you might like to accompany me?"

"Where're we going?" He asked, reaching for his own jacket hanging beside Sherlock's by-habit designated coat-hook; the one adjacent to the door.

"Before...Mycroft said that if I wished it, I might...question Mary regarding the night of the murder. He states he has...readied things."

 _Things?_ John paused in his actions. "I, yes, I think I'd like to go, if that's all right with you. I don't know as I'd like to be in the same room with her -"

"That's all right. Only I will be allowed in. It was me she had come to..."

"Kill. I know." John zipped up his jacket, snuggling in. He could hear the wind blowing outside. It was gearing up for a winter storm. "Well, all the more reason I should be there," He smiled softly. A faint, almost not there acknowledgment of how, by some design, despite it all, there they both stood inside the creaking walls of 221B, side by side again. Despite everything and everyone that had worked its way between them, back they both had come; back home. John's gaze did not waver and he wondered – hoped? – That his own conviction showed on his face. They were stronger this way, he and Sherlock. He knew it. _Felt_ it to his core. Maybe the truth of it going deeper in him; settling in; making itself at home, more now than ever before.

They were two against...everything else and, with few exceptions, every _one_ else. Against _her_ now, as well. John battled the feelings that lingered in his heart for Mary. Yes, he had loved her and such feelings don't disappear over-night. He knew that. But she had murdered again; had _intended_ to murder Sherlock. Missed, thank-god, but in doing so hurt Sherlock anyway. Killed Anthony. Had Sherlock loved him? John thought so. He didn't _know_ , not absolutely but he _thought_.

Now was not the time to ask. Maybe the right time, the proper time, would never come. A secret part of him of him was happy that Sherlock had experienced it. A deeper part of him was even _proud_ of Sherlock for having had the courage to summon up such a feeling; such a vulnerable human state, from within himself, and preparing (as far as John had discerned), to offer it to another. Sherlock had always seemed so closed off, so remote from it all. John wondered now if Sherlock had simply been biding his time until the right man had come along. Perhaps Sherlock _had_ spent time, somewhere in his past, before John even knew him, where he had searched for someone and had come up empty.

Sherlock was special. Only someone very special, John had determined not many months after they had met, deserved him. So John felt _proud_ of Sherlock.

But the deepest part of himself, a small part, a dark, curdled, sour part huddled in one corner of his frail and jealous human psyche, a part that John Watson felt shame over, was hoping Sherlock had not loved Anthony so deeply. Was wishing somehow, though he wasn't certain exactly how, it had been him that Sherlock loved best. Was, yes, maybe even hoping that one day, when enough time had gone by, when they were both healed of their wounds...but it did not bear thinking about. Not now. Not when they both were still hurting, both bearing the freshest and bleeding scars from the tearing asunder of their hearts. "Let's go."

~!~!~

Sherlock thought it would be difficult. Everything he had read about such things said they were. Everyone said so. When he walked into the tiny, barren room with the single square table and the small blonde woman seated at it, facing him, everyone had said that this would be hard on him.

But it wasn't. He felt quite calm. Still and unmoving inside, the way a lake is still like glass in mid-evening before the night winds conjure up a whipping storm. The way lungs are still when they are robbed of life-sustaining breaths. Sherlock felt little of the frenetic mental high he usually rode during a case. But then this was, technically, not a case. At least not _his_ case. It was Mycroft's (and to a lesser extent when it came to Blythe it was Lestrade's), and therefore Mary wasn't so much a case as an assassin found guilty without a trial. Sherlock never asked Mycroft about the M16's processes in such instances and he most especially did not want to know where Mary Morstan was going end up. Despite everything she had done, he still understood her. He still comprehended her desperation to protect what little which she could call hers. She had only wanted John and she had only wanted her child and she wanted them alive and safe.

Still, it hurt him in a way he could not define that she had not trusted him enough to call him for help. But perhaps trust was not the issue at all? The roads taken to this room and this time were now irrelevant. They were not friends now. Perhaps they never had been.

And so Sherlock spoke no greeting when he entered the room with its four grey walls and its two-way mirror. A single bulb hung from the ceiling on a white wire. Everything was grey and white and metal and plastic. Ugly and cold. But Mary was a murderer now. A killer, just as she'd always been. He did not even exchange pleasantries with non-murderers, and certainly he would not indulge such now. Murderers did not get pillows and fresh tea. Not when in Mycroft's custody.

"I need you to tell me everything you can remember about Raymond Blythe."

Mary stared at him, expressionless but for red-rimmed eyes. Her hair hung a little in her face, the silver barrette she usually used to keep it out of her eyes having been confiscated along with every other personal object-cum-potential weapon. She cleared her throat. It sounded thick with mucus. She had been crying. "Don't you want to ask me -?"

"I know why you killed Anthony, that's not why I'm here."

"Do you?" She looked away and then back. "They won't let me see Elicia." When Sherlock did not react she added "And John won't call me."

"You're a liar and an assassin."

"I did it to protect _Elicia!"_ Anger now. Sharp and lethal. Sherlock was suddenly glad for the cuffs around her small wrists.

"I am aware." He said, keeping his own voice strictly neutral. Calmness was the key. Keep his mind sharp and his wits to the fore.

She slapped one hand on the table between them, the cuffs around her wrist clanging down and scraping the hard plastic. "If it had been John in danger, you _know_ you would have done the same."

"Yes."

Mary nodded her head, resigned but a small understanding had passed between them. "I did what I _had_ to do."

"What you _thought_ you had to do. On the surface they _seem_ the same but in reality the two are quite different." Sherlock said, clasping his hands together in front of him. "A lesson I have also learned the hard way."

"John understands," she declared. "He isn't angry that I saved our child."

"No. As you mentioned, I would probably have done the same. Even John might have done. It's not the killing John cannot abide but rather the _deceit_. And if there's one thing I have learned of John Watson he will not tolerate deceit."

"He forgave me once..."

"Yes, but I think perhaps we - you and I - are only granted the _one_."

Mary sat back, her shoulders slumping. "Where is Elicia? Is she all right?"

"She is fine and at Harrys'. John will be joining her there later."

"You mean he's _here_?"

"Of course. He may not be allowed to see you, he may even never forgive you, but it does not follow that he does not _love_ you."

Mary bit her lip. A cold, hard tear slipped down her cheek. "Well, I've really balled this up haven't I?" She joked humorlessly. Then she took a heavy breath, composing herself and stared straight at him. She had learned to file emotions away, and then bring them out again, when the situation required it. "Raymond Blythe wore a black suite. Well fitted, expensive but it had the look of one worn too often, like his money was drying up no doubt. He had a gold watch on his right hand and was sipping some cheap scotch out of a lead crystal tumbler while we talked in the car. The glass had a small chip on its rim - cheap or just old. At the pub he ordered chips and beer; a man who liked to play rich but was reverting to his more common, and cheaper, habits due to lack of funds." She huffed out her disgust at the memory. "He didn't even buy me a coke."

"We already know all that." Sherlock snapped. "Don't waste my time Mary." Was she stalling? Or holding out for a better fate perhaps? Had Mycroft offered her a deal? Was she going to work for his damnable git of a high-brow brother?

"Well, here's the bit you don't. He had a tattoo. On his left forearm. Script. Persian symbols...but the words were not Persian grammar, and the name itself was not in Persian but in Dutch."

"Yes, among the tattooed 'in' crowd Persian's the new Asian."

"It read 'Beautiful Nadije My Little Hope'. The Nadije was spelled with a 'jay'."

"Girlfriend," Sherlock intoned, steepling four fingers in front of his nose, his mind rapidly working the probabilities, the angles..."Netherlands, most probably Dutch - Nadi meaning 'hope' and 'je' or 'ye' meaning 'little'."

"She broke up with him." Mary said.

"Obvious. She most likely comes from wealth, possibly criminal element in her familial background; it's what attracted him. Her name tattooed on his arm was his way of trying to get her back; impress her."

"It didn't work." Mary said, "Not for long anyway."

Sherlock nodded. "He likes to think he's his daddy's son but daddy is dead and so he runs out of money to buy her things - she dumps him. So he gets the tattoo to grease the wheels, hoping to find or make an opportunity to show it to her; to spark a reunion; to rekindled their romance -"

Mary smiled ruefully. "But another, less confidant side of him knew that would not happen...hence _Little Hope_." Mary added.

"Yes, thus his pathetic attempt to prove himself a player by having someone he had a grudge against killed. Show her the newspaper the following day. Brag to her..."

"Only, again, it didn't work." They finished together.

Sherlock stared at her, regret filling him for so many things. "She was through with him long before..." He didn't finish the sentence because his thought took an immediate turn on a different, but related, train of thought. He quietly stared at Mary across the cheap table, puzzled. This intelligent woman making such an error in judgement. Why had she not texted someone when she was alone in 221B? _Before_ she entered the apartment? Why had she done this on her own? So careless...

Sherlock froze in his seat, and then swallowed when the conclusion – a conclusion he should have seen –proverbially hit him square between the eyes. _Oh..._

 _So_ obvious! _I am worse than a fool._

All things all in good time however. "Anything else?" He managed to ask. Mycroft, the smarmy bastard, will rub his nose this one in good and proper. He loved being right. _And rum cakes with cream cheese icing_ , Sherlock thought. It made him feel a bit better. Digs about Mycroft's voracious appetite for sweets always helped Sherlock regain his emotional equilibrium whenever he made a serious error in human judgment. Mycroft might very well be the smarter brother, but he was a weakling for sugar!

Mary shook her head. "I didn't _want_ to kill him Sherlock. If there had been any other way..."

Sherlock examined rather closely the scratches on the plastic table surface. "So you claim. You, a woman with your skill set and intelligence, did not consider any other way of resolving the situation before you decided to shoot an innocent man between the eyes? How does that feel by the way?"

Mary looked struck, perhaps for the first time since he had sat down. She licked her lips, not answering the second part. "There was no other way _out_."

"'No other way'? You are a very clever woman, Mary. To survive as long as you have in your line of work you would have had to be, and yet interestingly without my actually being present to witness the occurrence I can think of no less than _three_ ways; _three_ alternatives to actually murdering Anthony."

"Oh, and I suppose -?"

Sherlock spoke quickly, ruthlessly, because he wanted to leave this room. He suddenly no longer wished look into those eyes that had lied to him for so long. Mary, the accomplished Liar. Mary the Killer. Mary the Murderer. Mary who must thoroughly hate me. Must have always hated me. Her rival, her competitor, the 'other man' who had fought to keep a part of John Watson's heart.

Kindness.

Trust.

Love.

Forgiveness.

Hope.

None of it served useful purpose.

 _I have been the worst sort of idiot._

But he would explain it. He felt the need to without entirely understanding his own reasons. Perhaps he was competing with her, even now. "You could have explained the situation to Anthony, and then fired a shot into the wall, and _then_ called the ambulance. That way Raymond Blythe would be convinced that I was dead by the arrival of the ambulance. That's what he was waiting for outside in his car – correct? Or you could have fired the gun Raymond Blythe put in your hand directly into Raymond Blythe's knee, causing him sufficient agonising pain that he would have given up the whereabouts of Elicia without delay. He was, after all, an ineffectual man - a coward. Knowing what I know about you, you would have seen that about him, I think, almost immediately. And finally, you could have texted or called myself, Mycroft, perhaps even John or Lestrade, most of us persons of ingenuity who would have acted without hesitation and come to your assistance in an instant. It is highly unlikely that Elicia would have come to any harm. Besides being a stupid man Raymond Blythe is a man imprisoned by greed but ultimately one whose well had run dry. Blythe would not have had access to the funds necessary to pay thugs to do his bidding beyond the scope of his own imagination. Undoubtedly those he hired are made of no great mettle either and therefore _not_ men who would willingly murder a child for the promise of a measly few thousand quid."

Mary shifted in her seat, the chain hanging between her cuffs clinking against each other. "You weren't there, Sherlock."

"No I wasn't but I do believe that, since that time, you have been wishing I _had_ been."

Mary's face turned to stone. Sherlock saw, now, how cold her eyes really could be. Mary Morstan-Watson or whatever her name was (Mycroft was still digging up that bit of intel') would have gladly shot him had he been home. Just as she'd intended in the beginning. It was so simple really, _now_ , when forced to look at the total picture. When confronted by it; when it was screaming the obvious of it in your face for over a year and you studiously ignoring it because you loved someone. Someone very important to you; someone who would have been deeply hurt to know his fiancé hated his best friend or that his best friend was struggling to trust his fiancé. Had, in the end, forced himself to look away, to _not_ deduce, and to stay willingly blind, all because of sentiment.

Sherlock understood now as he had not before that he had not been any ordinary fool to have missed Mary's true intent in the beginning; he had been the worst sort of fool – a sentimental one. He had closed his eyes to the fake Mary. Did the right thing, the kind thing and had _not_ looked beneath. And then, when her bullet had struck true and painful, he had later closed his eyes once more to the _real_ Mary. His love for John had blinded him to the woman beneath the fake one, and then, once more, to the deeper, even truer woman beneath _that_. Mary Morstan, the raw, unveiled Mary Morstan, had been an assassin not because she'd _had_ to be but because she'd _wanted_ to be. Because not only had she been good at it, she'd _liked_ it. She'd only gotten out of the business because Moriarty, undoubtedly her boss, had died. But that had not been the only reason for her escape. Magnusson would have delighted in destroying her, and she knew it. Mary had climbed out of that life into a new one, sliding on the skin of Normal Mary over her underlying skin, it itself false, of The Reluctant Assassin which hid the truest, most organic, most _real_ part of her - Mary the Zealous Executioner.

"All this time..." Sherlock whispered.

Mary sighed, tired of the interview. "Yes, all this time." She whispered back cruelly. "Everything would have been fine if you'd just _died_ in that office tower. None of this had to happen if you'd just bloody die!" She licked her top lip, musing over it. "I never thought you'd be so easy to fool."

"'There is nothing which deceives us as much as our own judgement'."

"How pithy. Shakespeare?"

"Da Vinci."

Mary watched him stand and walk to the door. "Goodbye Sherlock. It was fun I suppose."

He did not look back.

~!~!~

When Sherlock saw who was standing outside the room next to Mycroft he stopped short. "John?" He then looked one to the other, puzzled at John's presence and not a little suspiciously at his brother. "I asked you to wait in the other room."

" _I_ invited him in so he could witness your interview." Mycroft said somewhat loftily, and then glanced at John to his left before returning his cool gaze on the woman through the one-way glass. "He has a right to know, after all, who his wife _really_ is. Don't you think Sherlock?"

Mycroft then turned his full attention on his brother. "You gathered what you needed I trust?"

Sherlock nodded. "You heard it as well as I did."

Mycroft nodded, oblivious to the way John's head had been swivelling back and forth between the two brothers his face beginning to scrunch up, first in exasperation and now in good old fashioned righteous anger. "All right, here I am _geniuses_ ," He said, barely keeping a lid on his temper. "Kindly bloody _enlighten_ me you pair of -!"

Both Mycroft and Sherlock's right eyebrows twitched upward at the unspoken curse against their persons. If it hadn't been such a thoroughly un-funny situation, John might have laughed. "You have no idea, do you?" They were _so_ alike. Much more alike than different. But the question had been rhetorical and he decided to abandon that particular line of thought, rubbing at burning eyes. God he was tired. As he knew they all were. Fighting would get them nowhere. " _What_ am I supposed to know Mycroft?"

Mycroft tugged at his vest, smoothing it out and then moved to enter the room where Mary sat still and silent.

"John, wait outside." Sherlock said. It had come out as an order and if John's first instinct as a former soldier was anything other than an inclination to obedience he might have punched him. He didn't budge.

"No," Mycroft barked at Sherlock, and then to John. "No, John, please stay here and continue to observe."

Sherlock stood stiffly and, John thought, a little anxiously as Mycroft entered the room and seated himself in the chair opposite her, his back straight and his head held to one side as he observed her up close. John felt a little shiver run through him head to toe. So might have the Original Dragon observed the fresh humans in Eden for the very first time.

Mycroft removed a tiny note-book from the breast pocket of his two thousand pound suit and opened it. "Now," he began calmly, pleasantly, as though he were a shop manager interviewer a potential employee for a position among his clerical staff, "I require some clarification. There are only a few details missing from our records. The official total of your high level targets are too numerous to recount here and we already know the circumstances surrounding them. But a few names we are uncertain about – whether they were listed among your designated 'jobs' - completed or not completed – so I shall say a date and you shall tell me a name. Answer _only_ with a name please, I want no details at this time." He was no longer looking at her. "Are we clear?"

John suspected Mycroft already had the list in his head. The notebook was mere show.

Mary nodded. She looked as tired as they all did but behind it she was trying, he thought, to appear bored. It was clear she hated Mycroft. It seemed she hated almost everyone. "Fine."

"Splendid." Mycroft read the first name "On the 27th of April 2009 in Copenhagen, your target was..?"

It was obvious she recognised the date. "Kenneth Mason Brown."

Mycroft made a checkmark next to the name in question. "On August 6th, 2009 in New York your target was..?"

"Simon Paul Redding."

"Mmm," Mycroft said and made another check-mark. "On February 29th, 2010 in Stratford your target was..?"

"I had two actually," Mary smiled unkindly.

Mycroft stared back at her, his manner flat and calm, his pale blue eyes chilling. "Names please?"

She sighed. "This is bloody _shite_ Mycroft. I want to speak to John."

"John doesn't want to speak to you. Names please?"

She shook off her outburst and swallowed a few times, gathering back her stony surface. "Alistair Jordan and Mohammad M. Hage."

Mycroft checked off two more names and cleared his throat. He looked straight at her, unblinking, one deadly predator to another. "And on the 1st of April, 2010," he asked, his voice silken and lethal, "Your target was..?"

John watched as the blood drained from her face, and as Mycroft smiled the flat, humorless smile of the dealer who had altered the dice and stacked the deck well before the game had commenced.

Mary swallowed again and John could see her throat muscles moving slowly, as though with effort. "You already _know_ who, you bastard." She snarled, "Why this ridiculous _game_?"

"Just clearing up a few things..." He replied sweetly. "Say it."

"Sod _off,_ Mycroft Holmes."

"Unlikely. We shall stay here as long as necessary. Until you comply with my request. Name please?"

John watched, fascinated. And then a spark of light, a shaving of a memory surfaced in the back of his mind, along with the recollections of every other awful thing that happened that year. A brief clench of horror accompanied the memories of those awful times, all of it making John think furiously. That date, that single day, as he stood wrapped in Semtex by a shimmering and tranquil indoor pool smelling of chlorine, that _hour_ where it had all started to go straight to hell... _that_ was the day, the hour, the moment when...

John reached out a hand to steady himself on the wall when his legs threaten to turn to water. _God Almighty...it was...it was...was it? No...Christ_ please _no..._

Through the window John watched as Mary, as his bloody _wife_ , stared back defiantly until Mycroft startled them all by bringing his left hand down flat and hard on the table. It sounded like a rifle shot.

" _NAME!"_ He shouted his face turning a frightening shade of puce. Then, once its echo had also faded he leaned across the cheap expanse of the table, there for no purpose but for this. No one had even offered her tea. He had made sure of it. Mycroft whispered to her softly, so it was just for her now wide open ears "I can only assume you still desire to _live_?"

"You're loving this, aren't you?" She asked not expecting an answer. "You're an evil, manipulating _bastard_ Mycroft Holmes."

Mycroft smiled the tiny, vicious, and entirely pleased grin of those standing on the winning side. Pleased at his victory, though there really had been no possibility of it coming out any other way. "It takes one to know one." He calmly took up his pen once more. "Name?"

Mary set her jaw and squared her shoulders. Not turning her head toward the mirror where she knew John stood on the other side listening to everything, but locking her eyes on Mycroft defiantly she ground out between clenched teeth and said matter-of-factly – as though it were a source of professional pride not to deny it any longer (other than Elicia it was the only thing she had left to be proud of anyway, in a _personal_ sense) - "Sherlock S. _Holmes_."

~!~!~

Part 7 asap


	8. Chapter 8b

" **And When I Say 'Friend'..." Part 8**

By GE Waldo

 **Rating** : Mature but with some humour. Also murders n' stuff.

 **Pairing** : John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC and eventually Johnlock.

 **Summary** : John's new life makes him long for his old and Sherlock's new beau makes John just...jealous! Takes place in a possible future universe after John and Mary's baby has arrived.

 **Disclaimer** : Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.

 **Okay...HERE is the proper Part 8! I posted it the other day and only later realised I'd posted the wrong copy of it. Too, too awful! Chalk it up to working six days/week lately I guess. Too cowardly to even read the reviews that must have come where readers must have noticed the continuity errors! Anyway...here we go again...thanks for your patience,**

 _ **Your humbled Genie.**_

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

' _Sherlock Holmes'_

John Watson almost swooned when he heard Mary say the name.

' _Sherlock Holmes'_ she'd said.

The pool. She had been at the pool that day.

Mary the assassin. Moriarty's hired killer. Probably _The_ Assassin.

Hiding somewhere up above.

With a rifle in her hand and her eye on the sight.

The sight aimed straight at Sherlock's heart.

Or at his head.

 _His_ Mary. His _wife_. Elicia's _mother_. "Why the fuck am I even surprised?" he mused to himself, hysterical with regret but all the more numb because of it. John's head had gone terribly silent.

But for the whisper in his left ear of Moriarty's ghost-voice again.

 _Idiot John..._

 _Mary, Mary,_ quite _contrary..._

 _How now will her pardon go?_

 _With her phony shell and cocked up hell and dead men all in a row?_

A strange cackle from a dead man followed. Yet John listened, unable to turn his attention away while wondering what that said about his sanity. 

_You can really pick 'em soldier boy._

"I'm losing my mind." John said aloud. "How could I possibly not have _seen_ her; who she _really_ bloody was? I can't _believe_ it."

 _That'll be your epitaph I think – ha-ha!_

"How could I be so _fucking_ stupid?"

 _Oh, Johnny, Johnny...I've often wondered that myself._

Sherlock did not look at his friend. "She fooled everyone."Which was not entirely true. His had been a willing ignorance. Sherlock had been fooled because he allowed it. He lied for love. Foolishness. It was all useless emotion. What lasting good had ever come from it?

But never again. Not _ever._ Truth from this moment forward no matter how painful. Because lies, as it turned out, are every bit as destructive. Rather than voice any of that Sherlock announced "I think we're done here."

On weak legs John followed the sleuth out the door, shutting it, and her, away from his sight. He assumed Sherlock was intending to make use of the information Mary had provided and he was absolutely going to go with him wherever such information might take them. "Do you have any idea where to find Blythe?" He asked Sherlock, just to fill the spaces between their bodies and the echoing grey walls as they walked the many corridors of this, one of Mycroft's several boltholes, finally emerging into fresh air.

The door from which Sherlock exited the non-descript building left them standing in a damp laneway. Night had fallen and John felt it quite apropos that it had begun to rain as well, his mood had fallen so far so fast. And yet there was a spark of excitement inside him, too, because they were going to hunt down the man who had started this whole journey. Danger lay ahead and John couldn't wait to get his teeth around it.

Sherlock paused to slip of a pair of leather gloves. Not his usual practise no matter how cold it got. John was about to ask him about them when Sherlock turned to him and, for the first time in weeks, offered a small smile of anticipation. "I have in fact _every_ idea where to find him."

"I'm coming with you." John said. Not a request but an assertion. And a promise.

Sherlock looked away down the alley. "John, once this is all over, I would be very obliged if you might consent to...attend the funeral on Friday. In his will Anthony had requested cremation but Mycroft has arranged a small memorial service in his honor."

John could hear the words Sherlock had not said openly – that Mycroft had made the arrangement more for _Sherlock_ than for Anthony. Sherlock would not say so, but over the years John had learned to read at least _that_ much between the two brothers; friction-filled as it was, theirs was none-the-less a relationship where love played not so small a part as either might assert.

' _I worry about him...constantly...'_

John watched as Sherlock picked at his sleeve. They ought to have some dinner, or at least a quick bite, but John knew Sherlock would not eat right now anyway; rarely eating while on a case – even a case technically not his. And rarer still had he seen Sherlock take a break while on the hunt and because of that John had, alongside Mycroft, equally come to worry about the sleuth.

There was something about Sherlock, some indefinable, silent _need_ that Sherlock carried around with him. An invisible cloak, an essence, a thing excreted but discovered by only those who looked closely enough; by those who loved him. He carried with him a broken aura, a certain vulnerability - invisible – but still _there_ and John was convinced the need was genuine no matter how often Sherlock denied his desire for anything; human or otherwise. Recent events had proven him right. He was also convinced Sherlock had no idea he was projecting that need, that cry for affection, for love, out into the world. The man was brash, rude; sometimes even cruel but then, when John, or others, would respond to him in anger - as anyone might - Sherlock would turn that bewildered gaze their way, incomprehension in his eyes, often stunned to silence by their reaction, and befuddled as to what to do next. John suspected that was why Sherlock often sought to escape emotional situations. Feelings, even his own, often simply did not _compute_. They overwhelmed him.

Sherlock's _difference_. Seemingly deliberate - an assumption made by many that John doubted more and more. Sherlock Holmes was not...quite...normal. No, not _quite_ by most definitions of the word but that –whatever it was as its core - which made Sherlock isolated, remote, cold, stiff, indifferent was also the thing that made him one-of-a-kind, unique, ethereal, beautiful, and brilliant. _Perfectly_ suited to the career he had invented.

There remained, though, that small question of the hidden component in the man. There existed inside Sherlock a rarely witnessed - or even understood – susceptibility, an unprotected part that could be hurt. John wished he knew exactly what it was. Maybe it was nothing more complicated than loneliness? Mycroft had said as much.

Perhaps that _something,_ whether loneliness or something else entirely, about Sherlock was what Anthony had learned? If so he had come to an understanding about Sherlock's special nature very quickly. He had somehow, gotten in. And Sherlock had welcomed him.

John was certain Sherlock felt emotions the same as anyone did. His friend was _not_ a psychopath or a sociopath. He was just... _different_. And often, as though people unknowingly recognised that Sherlock needed an extra bit of patience from them, would then stretch themselves to accommodate him. That difference made people _want_ to help him; _want_ to make things easier for him. At least those who had taken the time to get to know him; to see beyond Sherlock's cool, sometimes even cold exterior, to the human being underneath, the frail flesh and blood person who possessed weaknesses like everyone else; who sometimes needed help, just like everyone else.

Secretly John was glad for that. Secretly, he knew Lestrade understood it as well. _And_ Missus Hudson and Molly. Sherlock's _friends_.

"I'd be honored." John placed the fingers of his right hand on Sherlock's left sleeve, urging one more moment of shared stillness before they set out. "Sherlock, you didn't know did you? All this time, you didn't know that it was Mary at the pool? Working for that lunatic?"

"No," Sherlock said, looked at John's hand curiously though making no motion to remove it, and then at John's dark eyes, and into the layers of pain nestled there. "Not at that time. I had no idea of Mary's existence until the day I returned." But John seemed reluctant to yield. "I would not have allowed your acquaintance-ship with her to continue had I known. And you know what Mycroft would have done, had _he_ known."

John stared back at him for a few seconds, perhaps seeking out the depths of the sleuth's eyes to see if it was indeed the truth. Satisfied, John nodded and looked away, releasing Sherlock's arm. "Okay...okay, thank you. So, um, where exactly are we going?"

"We'll need a cab – damn." Sherlock was checking his pockets. "I left my phone inside..." He trailed off.

A keening need to be of use, now; the desire to expunge what had just been revealed to them; an urge to work against their mutual enemy and whatever representative machinations; to thwart it; end it; _crush_ it - John asked "Where is it? With Mycroft?"

"He made me leave it outside the room. On the ledge by the door I think."

"Ok, you find us a cab - I'll get the phone."

Sherlock smiled, just a twitch of a lip. "Thank you John. You've always been so good to me."

After a bit of a double-take at the oddly timed compliment John nodded and dashed back inside. He found Mycroft in the outer room on his phone rattling off precise instructions to one of his minions on the other end, glancing at John curiously as he entered.

"Sorry," John said sotto-voce, "just come to get Sherlock's phone. He left it here."

Mycroft ended his call and watched John glance around the room. "He told you that, did he?" Mycroft asked followed by a soft sigh.

John then noticed this room, the outer room to the interrogation room, had no ledge by the door. Or anywhere else. When John realised Sherlock had just duped him, Mycroft, already ahead of him, said "I'll arrange a search party."

He sounded heavily wearied by his little brother and by his little brother's less than brilliant flat-mate. "I assume he's off to find Blythe on his own?" The elder Holmes rhetorically asked and then added "Do you have your gun John or did you leave it at the flat where Sherlock was bound to get his hands on it?"

John closed his eyes. "That _bastard!_ And no I do _not_ have my gun!" Which meant Sherlock most likely did.

"Which means Sherlock most likely does." Mycroft scolded making John cringe as he heard his own thought verbalised. " _Yes!_ \- bloody hell – so where would he go?" John demanded of the older and - if such could be believed – more arrogant Holmes. "You and he, you both _do_ this stuff, this deducing, bloody knowing _everything_ method-gimmick-bloody _trick_ ; and you heard everything she said too, so _where_ would Blythe go Mycroft?"

"Where else? - To his former girlfriend's home of course. And if she's not there, the next place she'd most likely be." Mycroft was texting while he spoke. No doubt sending out an army of well armed bullish men to track down his insufferably reckless little brother.

 _Good bloody thing,_ John mused thunderously _, because if I find him first I'm likely to beat the living_ shite _out of him._

"And what do you deduce from that?" Mycroft asked.

John could guess. "It means the stupid _git_ is walking into a den of hardened criminals _alone_."

~!~!~

John yanked his phone from his pocket and typed furiously:

SHERLOCK YOU BETTER NOT BE DOING WHAT WE THINK YOU'RE DOING!

No answer.

GET BACK HERE YOU LUNATIC!

Silence.

WHERE EVER YOU ARE, WAIT FOR US. DO NOT GO IN ALONE!

Nothing.

PLEASE. IF YOU CARE ABOUT ME AT ALL.

And then, finally

WAITING IN THE REAR LANEWAY BUT HURRY UP!

An address followed and John memorized it, breathing an immense sigh of relief as his heart began to slow from its panicked pace. WE'RE ON OUR WAY

John put his phone away and looked up. Mycroft was waiting on him it seemed. "Do you have an address?"

"Sherlock did not give it to you?"

"Yes but I want to make sure it's the _same_ address."

Mycroft smiled wryly. "He _can_ be nefarious, can't he? The address I have is 327 Belsize Park Gardens in Islington. Middle-upper class. Notable for one or two crime families. Blythe undoubted has gone to his girlfriend's father's house; that is - one of."

"One of? Terrific. Well, that matches the address Sherlock gave me at least. Let's go. You've a car waiting I hope."

Mycroft followed him, his umbrella tapping out a quick regular rhythm on the ceramic flooring as they went. "Oh _please_ Doctor Watson, what else might you expect of me?"

~!~!~

But when Mycroft's long, black car parked down the laneway, Sherlock could not be seen. He was not where he was supposed to be and it was now dark. Mycroft got on his phone, this time actually speaking to someone, requesting all recent CCTV footage from the area recorded for the last hour be transferred to his phone. It was a few moments before it arrived. Once it did, they watched it. Twelve minutes in, a short grainy video footage arrived on Mycroft's cell screen and played out the scene for them. In it a grey car swiftly arrived in the alley and three men scrambled out, quickly locating and hauling out a man in a long dark coat with dark curls – Sherlock – from where he had been hiding behind a collection of dustbins – and roughly shoving him into the rear seat of the car. It sped away. Mycroft rubbed one eyebrow. "My people will shortly have the license plate information to us and to my team, and we will know shortly where they might have taken him."

"You mean you have no idea?"

Mycroft was growing tired of John Watson. "As loathe as I am to admit it, I am _not_ the omniscient being you seem to believe I am. Sherlock is, as I have for many years tried to educate you, a reckless and impulsive man and as such you must be aware by now that this is _hardly_ the first time he's gotten himself in over his head."

John's stomach was sinking fast. "Why would he go on his own?"

"You _know_ why!" Mycroft snapped, finally at the end of his patience. "Why you insist on ignoring the obvious is beyond my understanding."

John swallowed hard. Yes, he knew – he suspected. "He doesn't want me hurt."

"And to that event he will do everything to prevent it. _Surely_ you have enough evidence to draw the same conclusion?" Mycroft asked and it was rhetorical again because he gave John no opportunity to answer back. "That's why he went away, to protect you, to keep you from harm, no matter the harm to himself or anyone else – he _loves_ you." Mycroft said it angrily. "He's acting like an idiot – risking himself _again_ \- for _you_."

"But..." John rubbed his eyes, feeling an anguish building inside him, like a well of old infected water rising to the surface. "But he and I...we've never..."

" _Spare_ me the particulars." Mycroft insisted while never taking his eyes off his phone. "Sherlock loves the _idea_ of you and him. He loves you as he loved his dog, with a fierce protective loyalty, as though you will continue forever, and always be by his side, following him; together against the world. He has no experience otherwise of love or affection or _relationship_." Mycroft straightened his vest as though even speaking of such things wrinkled his psyche. "We have spoken of this before Doctor Watson...what is the use in repeating it? Sherlock would never forgive me for telling you these things but you're his religion, John, a religion with no forgiving God at the end, only your life intact." His phone beeped for attention. "My team has traced the licence plate. We have an address - at least a possibility." While he explained Mycroft typed a response and John felt a pang of envy at how both brother's could shut down emotions so easily; set their minds to tasks and ignore the world as it crumbled to ruin at their feet. Although Afghanistan had often asked no less of _him_.

"I'm sending my team ahead of us with instructions not to engage until I have arrived and determined a course of action."

John shook his head at Mycroft's use of the pronoun. "Until _we_ have determined a course of action, Mycroft, _we_."

"Of course," He sounded weary. Putting his phone away in his coat he gave instructions to his driver. The car moved and buildings and streets swept passed their respective windows. John noticed a small tray of expensive looking glasses and a decanter of whiskey had appeared out of nowhere, Mycroft pouring them both two fingers of alcohol. He handed one over to John and then leaned back in his seat for the ride. "Have a drink Doctor Watson. We have a long ride ahead of us."

Mycroft sipped at his own drink. Looking down into the dregs of the whiskey, he sighed softly. "I loathe field work."

~!~!~

"Why are you following Nadia?" Asked a heavy set man whose body was, in his mid fifties Sherlock estimated, running more to fat. Nadia's father. _Of course, who else?_ "What is your interest in her?" He asked, sipping at a steaming beverage while two of his most muscular goons had Sherlock on the floor between them. Moments after being violently shoved into the rear seat of a grey luxury automobile and a black cloth pulled over his head –how stereotypical! - Sherlock found himself arriving at stately looking Inn in the country – family owned obviously – and soon had hauled him in front of an older man, clearly their wage payer, made him remove his clothes all but for his trousers (which were now getting scuffed and dusty on the cement floor), and then forcing him to his knees. The one of his left, the blonde one - no wife; gay; at least several years in Her Majesty's Service before being dishonorably discharged and so in need of employment - had his arms pulled painfully behind him and the other, the buzz-haired brunette – married, one - no - two children in expensive schools, drank high fat latte's and played Rugby - had Sherlock's hair in his beefy fist and was yanking on it this way and that, forcing him to look straight at the man who was Nadia's crime boss father.

Sherlock could feel the cold of the floor through the fabric at his knees and the cool basement air was turning his toes to little ice-cubes. "I'm not since you asked. I'm only interested in locating Raymond Blythe."

Crime-dad looked bored at sipped at his tea. Earl Grey. Englishman but spent most of his younger years abroad which was where he got his start in drug smuggling. Soft Russian-ish accent partly played up to inspire fear. Worked his way up through the ranks then married well enough to start his own cartel. A small but 'respectable' businessman, at least among criminals, who kept his drug trade mostly out-of-country therefore no threat to the more established crime families and certainly no challenge for Mycroft's minions. "Oh? And why is that?"

"He killed a friend of mine."

"Did he?" Appearing bored, he added with a cruel smile, "I hear it was a woman."

"Blythe sent her to kill me."

Amused - "So an idiot as I always knew but perhaps not _all_ bad."

"She killed my friend by mistake, Mister Franks." May as well try some manners, not that Sherlock expected them to work.

"Mmm," he finished his tea. "Pity..." Thomas Marcus Franks nodded to the second man who released Sherlock's hair and instead hauled back a size thirteen booted foot and kicked him hard in the side. Sherlock felt a sharp lancing pain as he heard his own rib crack, and suddenly it was much harder to breath. "Just tell me where he is..."Sherlock gasped around the agony. "I have no quarrel with you."

"And I none with you, specifically, but I do not appreciate my home being watched nor my daughter being followed." He nodded to his man again and Sherlock felt the impact of the boot against his kidney. The pain would have sent him doubled over on the floor if he was not still being forced to stay partly upright. He sucked in great lung-fulls of air to try and ride out the waves of agony radiating from his middle left side. He would be peeing blood for a month. _John will be furious._ "Thomas..." Sherlock said between clenched teeth, "my brother will be here soon...you really should negotiate with me."

"And who," Thomas Franks asked, with feigned superiority, "is your brother?" The blonde goon moved near, leaned over and whispered something in his boss's ear and Thomas Franks looked up at him unable to disguise the surprise, and the sudden concern, on his flabby features. He looked back and forth between his hired muscle men. "You bloody _idiots!"_ He stuck his nose out at the man huddled on his floor. "Get rid of him and bleach this room and the car." He thundered. "Or I'll get rid of you. _Both_ of you!"

Sherlock knew what that meant. "Kill me and Mycroft Holmes will never stop until you're dead."

Franks stared at him. "What assurance do I have you'll keep him away from me and my business?"

"Give me Blythe and you'll never hear from me again, or my brother. You have my word."

Franks swallowed. A fine sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead.

"I could have you killed...your throat cut and your body tossed into the Thames."

Sherlock laughed. "How conventional. That's the first place they'll look for me and this is the first place Mycroft will come to find my killer."

Sherlock managed to sit up on his backside, his cold feet out in front of him and looked back at his abuser. "You think you can trust your men but I know for a fact that _this_ man" – he nodded to the brunette – "is sleeping with your daughter. He is wearing Caron's Poivre – a rather feminine – and pricey - scent for a hired thug. Your wife, Mister Franks, is nineteen years deceased and you have remained unmarried out of your love for her late wife so there are no women regularly in your household other than your housekeeper and cook. The housekeeper would hardly afford, or wear, such an alluring perfume to scrub toilets and cooks only smell like cooked beef and vegetable pairings, so that leaves your daughter but I suspect she would not purchase such an expensive product for herself without arousing your, shall we say, frugal nature. You bought that outrageously expensive perfume for her on the nineteenth anniversary of your wife's death which is also the day your daughter was born. Sniff your man's collar if you don't believe me."

Franks stared at the man who suddenly looked extremely nervous when Franks then leaned in and sniffed for himself. He took a step back. "I gave my daughter that perfume for her birthday." He snarled his eyes narrowed with rage and suspicion.

The brunette's eyes darted around in fear and stammered "He's _l-lying_ , Mister Franks."

"Shut up David!" Franks warned. "I'll deal with you later, make no mistake about it." Then to Sherlock "Well, aren't you a clever one." But his hands were shaking. Sherlock could not tell if it was over him, or the news about his daughter, that was the underlying cause.

Sherlock stared up at Franks with cool confidence. "We don't have much time, mister Franks. I don't want my brother to find me. He'll stop me from getting to Blythe. We are in agreement in a crucial way, you see; Blythe used your daughter to his own advantage and he had my friend murdered. We share a mutual dislike for the man so I know you want to see him punished as much as I do. You could do it yourself but it would be so much easier to have me do it, don't you think? He'll be out of your hair and your hands will be clean."

Franks stood and stared down at his captive. "How sure are you that you can convince your brother not to interfere with me and my...business?"

"Because you're not _dead_ yet. My brother is most likely here already and is outside analysing the situation. He is _waiting_ , for now, but he will do whatever he must to prevent any harm coming to me."

Franks stared back, his mind wavering between the possibilities and Sherlock added "Everyone has family mister Franks, everyone has someone they care about more than themselves. Yours is your daughter."

"And your brother's is _you_?" He asked, not certain yet if he should believe.

"Exactly. I've found it useful over the years. You know where Blythe is I assume?"

"I've been keeping an eye on him, yes."

"Well...?"

Franks set his jaw, his eyes turning hard and cold. "He used my daughter, claimed to love her – fucked her – while like a dog begging me for work; for a place, for a _position_ in my business - in _my_ household." His nostrils flared. "I despise him. Do I have your word, Mister Holmes, that you will punish Blythe? Harshly?"

"Yes. Do we have a deal? With dispatch if you please this floor is rather uncomfortable."

More at ease again, Franks chuckled. "You're a strange man Holmes." He nodded to the brunette and Sherlock felt anxious fingers fumbling with the restraints at his back. With some help from the blonde man who had kicked him so thoroughly, Sherlock struggled to his feet, his side screaming at him to sit down again. He stared at Franks. "I'll need the address please, and my wallet, my phone, my gun, some non-descript clothing, a pair of trainers size eleven, a back way out of here and a ride if you please."

"You don't want much do you?" Franks asked imperiously. "My secretary will fix you up." Frank's Russian accent has disappeared and Sherlock's lip twisted. _Thought as much._

"Daniel," he nodded to the blonde man, "will escort you." Franks looked over at his man David. "And later you and I are having a little _chat_."

David nodded solemnly.

Then once more Franks addressed Sherlock - "You know that anything other than a cab will attract your brother's attention."

Sherlock sniffed. "Obviously."

~!~!~

Not ten minutes after Sherlock had stepped into a black cab and sped away, Thomas Franks found himself staring down the business end of a Sig Mauer complete with silencer. At its other end stood a large, mean looking individual holding the gun very steadily. He was clearly adept with it. Beside him stood a man in a three piece suite holding an umbrella at his side as one would hold a favorite walking stick.

The ginger haired man wearing the first class tie and pin – he even had a kerchief in his coat pocket – stared back with predomination, utter superiority in his eyes, and said "Sherlock Holmes was here. Where did you send him?" He asked with civility. Civility Franks knew would swiftly turn to anything _but_ , knowing what he did regarding Mycroft Holmes' reputation. He was not a man to be trifled with. That was a thing Franks could at least respect.

Mycroft Holmes lifted his umbrella and dusted off a speck he appeared to have spotted on its tip, as though wiping off grime it had accumulated by merely being in the same room with Thomas Franks. "Where did you send Sherlock? I know Blythe will not be alone there. I know you intend for Blythe and for my brother to die together. You used your cell to arrange matters after Sherlock left. I know this, Mister Franks." Mycroft patiently explained. Franks noticed another man enter the room and stand in the corner at attention. A military type. Smallish, angry. Ready to fight.

Franks looked back at Mycroft Holmes. "Sherlock said you were outside. I knew he was lying."

"Whatever else he told you _wasn't_ a lie, Thomas." Mycroft seated himself in the room's only chair, the one Franks had sat in while his men had beaten this man's little brother, breaking his ribs. Holmes crossed his legs, getting comfortable. "If you do _not_ tell me exactly what I want to know right now, keeping nothing back mind, I will have you shot." Mycroft glanced at his large assistant with the gun trained between Franks eyes. "Morris here has had his gun out three times this week yet no transpiring opportunity to fire it. I can well imagine he's getting bored."

Morris stepped closer, much closer, and pressed the gun's barrel against Franks' forehead, hard enough that it hurt. It would bruise.

Franks asked "You will leave me alone after this?"

"Once I've facilitated the transfer of your so-called business to the continent, and cancelled your British citizenship in perpetuity, yes." Mycroft explained pleasantly. "Come-come Mister Franks, you _know_ of my reputation or you would not be sweating so. I have already had my investigators gather three possible locations where you would most likely have sent my brother, so this little **tête-à-tête** of ours is nothing more than a formality really. Cooperate." Mycroft Holmes looked at the lovely gleam on his polished shoes. "Or I could just ask Morris to pull his trigger right now and save me all this bother."

Franks swallowed. "I'd like for my daughter to remain in Britain. She will have a better life here."

"I'm certain I can arrange that." Mycroft assured him.

"I have your word?"

"I grow weary of your questions." Mycroft smiled. A cold, mocking twist of his thin lips. " _Where_ did you send my brother?"

Franks licked his lips nervously as Morris's weapon never moved from between his thick brows. "To my late wife's summer house - in Millbrook, Cornwall. Lower Anderton Road, number 31. Blythe is there, and my men."

"How many men, Thomas, and the weapons they carry please?"

When Franks had laid out details, Mycroft stood, brushing the imaginary dust from his trousers. "Thank you. And just to be certain you're not dissembling, Morris will remain with you in this room, and my team shall also stay in place in and outside is quaint little Inn of yours. Make no mistake Mister Franks; if you have lied to me, Morris has my permission to shoot your brains all over the wall behind you." Now Mycroft was all good posture, smiles and manners. "Everything clear?"

Franks stared wide-eyed at the ruthless devil before him. "Er...yes."

"Capitol...shall we go John?"

~!~


	9. Chapter 9

" **And When I Say 'Friend'..." Part 9**

By GE Waldo

 **Rating** : Mature but with some humour. Also murders n' stuff.

 **Pairing** : John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC and eventually Johnlock.

 **Summary** : John's new life makes him long for his old and Sherlock's new beau makes John just...jealous! Takes place in a possible future universe after John and Mary's baby has arrived.

 **Disclaimer** : Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.

 **HASTILY EDITED! BE FORGIVING!**

~!~!~!~!~!~!~

Cornwall was a many hours cab ride but Sherlock would charge it all to Mycroft's personal account. It was the least he could do to make it up to him. For Moriarty and everything since.

"Drop me here."

Sherlock took Mycroft's card back from the cabbie, ensuring to add a generous tip, and grabbed the plastic garbage bag Franks' assistant had thrust at him where inside his own clothes were. He climbed out of the cramped car into the chilled night air. It was late now, and most of the windows of the homes on the lamp-lined street were dark. Only a flicker in a sitting room here and there revealed a late night television show being watched by the home owners, but that was all.

The all night petrol station on the corner, however, was open, and there was a small coffee shop attached to it. Perfect. Sherlock walked in, his back straight, his head high and confident; his side a killer of agony. But he did not falter in his stride as he approached the person at the cashier desk. An older woman about the colouring and shape of his mother sat behind it reading the Star. Behind her were shelves displaying the expected knick-knacks of a modern but drab haberdashery; cigarette packages, gum, dusty salt and peppers shaker sets, magazines and trashy novels, bars of chocolate and bags of salty crisps.

Leaving off reading her article – yet another celebrity sex scandal undoubtedly; she looked the type – after a bit of a start at the sight of a man with blood on his face, the woman offered him a brief, rather stiff, smile of welcome "May I help you?"

Bloody strangers seemed of no great concern to her and Sherlock was thankful for it. "Yes," He turned to glance through the glassed swinging door into the attached coffee shop where a few tables and chairs stood. Only one was occupied; a lorry driver by his clothing and the circles under his eyes. Overnight deliveries no doubt, his truck parked in the lane-way so to more easily facilitate wheeling his product in the door. "I'd like a large coffee for take-away. A strong coffee, two sugars – no make it three." He noted a few small bottles of analgesics lined up on the shelf behind her. "And a bottle of Paracetemol." He had been up past twenty-four hours and had not eaten in all that time compounded by his ribs on his left side had been caved in and the subsequent constant pain with each and every breath, he felt the urgent need for a sustaining infusion of sustenance. "And where is the men's room please?"

After calling out through the swinging door to another woman wearing a stained apron to fetch a carry-away coffee, the cashier pointed down a hallway - "Bathroom is there. Three pounds-fifty-nine." She said.

Sherlock dug out a ten pound note from his pocket, leaving it on the counter and ignoring her when she asked why he didn't wait for his change. Taking his coffee, he swallowed one third of it before reaching the men's room down a short hallway which floor was in desperate need of a good scrub. Entering the bathroom, he bolted the door behind him.

A mingling of odors assaulted his nose; bleach, urine and the rather nauseating scent of rose, which lent a hint of something slightly more pleasant above all the less savory smells but was not nearly strong enough to overcome the truly deplorable olfactory state of the room. Leaning for a moment against the small sink and counter, he then forced his arms to begin to move. There was little time for dawdling.

He twisted open the lid from the bottle of pain killers. There was no seal. And when he pulled the synthetic cotton from inside, there appeared to be fewer pills than was stated on the label, making him wonder at the age and legality of the products for sale in her store. But beggars can't be choosers and he swallowed three of them, downing the pills with the next third of his coffee, hoping they weren't so past date that they wouldn't be effective.

After giving the pills a few moments to start their work, Sherlock let the borrowed grey jacket slide off his shoulders – much too big for him so it was hardly no effort - that idiot Franks obviously had no eye at all for size or style. Then, as swiftly as the now slightly dulled pain would allow, Sherlock unfastened the buttons on the borrowed shirt – shuddering at the ugly beige polyester affair, a frock better suited for polishing floors. Reaching for his belt, he slid the expensive leather out of the trouser loops, draping it across the sink.

Sherlock turned to stare at the single urinal behind him. He felt the need...

...Dark pink urine poured forth in a burning stream from his penis, making him gasp. Yes, John would indeed be angry with him. Once it slowed to a slow, painful trickle and then finished Sherlock, with some of his physical discomfort relieved, washed his hands. Then he tore off and wadded up a length of paper towel, soaked it in warm water, squirted a drop of cheap liquid soap onto it from the dispenser and cleaned off his face and neck. Underneath the bits of dirt and his own dried blood his face was still scuffed up and bruised but there was little he could do about that. On his scalp, where David had viciously tugged, a small clump of hair came out in his fingers. The spot was most likely bruised.

Not important anyway, he grabbed another hand-full of paper towel and pulled, taking away reams of it from the dispenser in one long sheet. Paper had surprising strength when used a certain way, and Sherlock wrapped six or seven meters of it around his chest, tucking in the loose end and then fastening his belt around the whole thing. It held snuggly in place. He felt he could move now, better than before at least, every step or breath was not a jolt of torment from his injured ribs, a mere resounding ache instead taking its place.

Donning his own far more expensive and properly tailored clothing and then wiping as much of the dust from his trouser knees as possible he appraised himself in the cracked mirror. He looked...still a bit rough but cleaner, his lines straighter. Good enough.

Except for the state of his hair. Sherlock ran fingers through his untamed curls, which had gotten thoroughly dishevelled by Franks' man David, to settle it down somewhat. It was a frankly losing proposition. He had battled his unruly hair his whole life, a struggle to which he had long ago surrendered. Wetting it down a bit helped but without his hair products...Sherlock sighed in dismay. It would have to do. He appeared presentable at least, and _not_ a man who had just gotten his arse thoroughly kicked and his ribs broken.

When confronting an enemy, one ought to least appear on top of his game and healthy. He took a step back and looked himself over in the small mirror.

Sherlock drank down the last of the cooling coffee and left the restroom, nodding to the elderly patron on the way out. She had left his change on the counter for him, and he ignored it.

Time was of the essence. Mycroft would surely be on his way. He would bring John. John would be very upset but it's not as though Sherlock hadn't waited, in the end, in that alleyway. He had intended, after some persuasion from John, to not go ahead alone.

But now, well, it was hardly his fault he had been kidnapped and brought to Frank's dreary country Inn. And now he was here and it made sense to him to proceed alone now. Things had transpired to cause the present circumstances and it was best not to involve John anyway, seeing what Sherlock might have to do. He had killed before, when it was necessary. When it had been vital. When he had seen no alternative.

In a variety of ways he had killed. Yet his heart still beat painfully in his chest at the thought of it. He had hoped that all this was behind him. True, Blythe had actually committed no murder personally. But Sherlock knew the probability was there before him, like a path burning its way toward his feet with him no way to turn. A wall at his back.

He could just simply not go forward. Call John, or Mycroft, or perhaps if he was honest with himself Lestrade. Any of them would come at once.

But then he would feel, next to his left ear or on his neck, the breath of the man he had...loved? \

He was almost certain. Anthony deserved retribution. Sherlock laughed a little aloud at the ridiculousness of it all. Was he really going to commit a vengeance murder? Was he going to transform himself into a gross cliché? Was he going to become, not just a man willing to kill to protect the living, but to avenge the dead?

Perhaps he could just bring Blythe in? Make a citizen's arrest? There would be other men present in the house; Sherlock had no doubt of that. A full assessment could not be made until he gained entry.

Franks had, thankfully, handed his – John's gun – back so he could confront Blythe properly armed. Blythe was an idiot but even idiots can prove dangerous. Retrospectively Anthony understood that more than anyone and even though Blythe did not pull the trigger that had ended Anthony's life, the principle was the same –Blythe had sent Mary to do the killing.

To kill Sherlock Holmes, and not Anthony. Anthony had been wholly innocent. He had been good. Anthony had been very kind to him, and patient and respectful and best of all both admiring and affectionate. A good man all around. And yet...still Sherlock had hardly known him. But why should that matter?

He had known John for two days before he knew he loved the man. Possibly more than he had ever loved anyone. In a rare lapse of personal mental awareness, Sherlock simply hadn't understood that. Not then.

Now...

After Moriarty, after three years of sacrifice dismantling his organization, after Magnusson, and now Blythe, Sherlock found he had grown weary of watching bad people hurt good people, especially when those people happened to be his friends. People he cared about. Those he _loved_. It didn't _stand_ any longer.

There was only one block to go. He could turn back now, but then what? Mycroft would no doubt be arriving momentarily and send in his goons to take care of Blythe. _If_ Mycroft decided to go with the regular halls of justice he _might_ run Blythe over to Lestrade. And then Blythe _might_ go to jail for a long time or he might _not_. All they had was the word of an assassin to go on; that and a blurry photo of Mary talking to a man who looked like Blythe in a restaurant. A woman who claimed the gun was his but upon which only her prints had been found. Hardly an iron-clad case. Far too many 'ifs' and 'mights' for Sherlock's satisfaction.

But if he himself confronted Blythe (and by default anyone who happened to be hold up in there with him – possibly Franks' own henchmen there to assure Sherlock's death. Franks was a fool to believe Sherlock would not have considered such a scenario because Sherlock was a genius. Obvious!), then Blythe would never get away with anything ever again, a far more satisfying outcome.

Sherlock was an exceptional genius in fact. He foresaw everything.

Almost. He had _not_ foreseen Anthony nor his own confusing feelings for him. He had not foreseen John Watson certainly. But no one was perfect.

Sherlock walked down the street, keeping to the shadow's between the lanterns diffused glow. The lamp-light outside Frank's house was turned off. Broken to facilitate clandestine approach? To confuse him? Perhaps. It didn't matter. He would enter by the side door. It would be the expected way. They would be ready for him, he was sure, as he was expecting and ready for them.

A sudden commotion interrupted these thoughts by way of two soft cracks! Shots! Within the next minute a man matching Blyth's build and colouring wearing suit trousers and a garishly neon red shirt – hideous shade– exited the house and jumped into a car.

Fascinated Sherlock watched as Blythe executed a round-turn at the dead-end street and drove toward Sherlock's spot where he was standing just off the pavement. It could not be more perfect. Sherlock raised his weapon and stepped into the street blocking the roads so that Blythe had no choice but to either stop or run him down. Sherlock did not think Blythe had it in him to actually commit a murder unless it was to save his own skin. He was a coward at heart hence this rash act. Sherlock wondered if the men inside the house were dead, not that he cared a whit about them but if Blythe had brought himself to shoot them, possibly kill them, then he might be, here and now, transforming into a more desperate man than he'd had any occasion to be even a day ago.

The car screeched to a halt inches from Sherlock's legs. The man inside stared at him with astonishment and fear. Sherlock kept the gun trained on the Blythe's hated face. Sherlock knew what it was to hate. As hypnotic as Moriarty's games had been, he had at heart, hated the man himself. He had done everything possible to try and trust Mary, to overlook his own lingering doubts about her, struggling to retain that trust after she had shot him.

All for John.

But with Blythe there was no need for struggle. Sherlock did not have to wrestle too much with his conscience with this man for Blythe was essential a waste as a human being. A contributor of nothing to the human race. Little more really than fleshly consumer of food and drink. Someone who would eat and down copious amounts of alcohol, and play cards and gamble, and steal and lie and fuck until he grew old and ugly and died alone in a dreary cigarette-yellowed flat somewhere, forgotten until someone noticed the stink.

Killing Blythe would almost be a mercy.

Sherlock kept his weapon trained on Blythe's sheep-like face and climbed in the passenger side. "Continue driving Mister Blythe." He ordered softly.

Blythe swallowed and gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. "Because you'll kill me if I don't?"

Sherlock smiled. Much amused. "As far as you know."

~!~!~

"Stop the car Mycroft." John said.

Mycroft tapped his umbrella handle on the partition between the rear seat and the driver's compartment as John twisted in his seat to watch another car pass them going the opposite direction. "Tell your driver to turn around and follow that car."

They'd been driving for hours already. His backside was killing him. Middle age he supposed. "Whatever fo-?"

"Sherlock was in that car! Just do it before we lose them." When the car a full block ahead turned a corner and sped away into the night, John banged on the partition separating the rear seats from the driver in the front. "Tell your driver to step on it; we're falling behind – for Christ's sake Mycroft!"

Mycroft reached with his umbrella and tapped the smoked glass divider soundly three times in succession. That appeared to get the message across to the driver and the vehicle lurched forward with a burst of speed, sending John back against the leather seats. "Don't lose sight of them."

Mycroft seemed content to let his driver do the rest and sipped at his second drink. "You've spilt your whiskey."

"Sod the dam whiskey." John snarled. "Sherlock has my gun, remember? And that was probably Blythe in the driver's seat. What do you imagine Sherlock's going to do? He's not taking the man dancing Mycroft."

"No, Sherlock's planning to kill Blythe." He remarked as though they were passing time with talk about the weather.

John shook his head at the man. "And that doesn't concern you, does it?"

"Whether Blythe lives or dies, not in the least. Whether my brother is blamed for it; that _does_ concern me."

"Christ what is it with you M16 types? Human life is a bloody dice game to you."

Mycroft looked over at John, his expression as cool as ice. "Sherlock's killed for _you_ before. He killed to protect your killer wife need I remind you. Why is this man's life so important to you?"

"Blithe may be a criminal, a conspirator after murder and right arse but he never pulled the trigger. If Sherlock kills him -"

"If Sherlock kills Blythe then it'll be his _second_ murder in defence of one Doctor John Watson, his sole _obsession_ in life." Mycroft snarled back. "Until you entered his life Sherlock may have been a recovering addict, a lonely genius and a socially inept child but he was no _killer_." Mycroft explained; forcing himself to reclaim his calm as he stared into the dregs of his glass, musing that he never used to drink every day. Not until John Watson. " _You_ have made him into that." He sighed heavily, weary of the whole thing. "My objective is to protect my brother from harm if at all possible. Your objective is, I can only assume, the same. If Blythe becomes collateral damage, I shall deal with it _if_ that eventuality arises – Ah, Sherlock is taking Blythe to the Lookout."

"Where?" John looked out his side window cut it was too dark. As far as he could tell they were far enough away from concrete civilization that it hardly mattered where. "I can't see a bloody thing."

"We're going to Ramehead John, a coastal point where those who fancy themselves artists go to sketch and where hikers hike."

"So there'll be people there?" He asked with a whispering hope.

"At this time of night?" Mycroft tone said _Don't be ridiculous_. "It's well passed two in the morning. Even the resident guide, if there is one, will be asleep in his or her bed."

Sherlock's cab, a shorter vehicle with slightly better ground clearance had pulled ahead by a few kilometers but they could still see the twin beams form its headlights shining feebly in the darkness, picking its way along the rough lane that passed for a road this far from London. "He'll have time." John said, fear gripping his chest. "We may not get there in time." What if Sherlock really shoots Blythe? Just how deeply in love with Anthony had Sherlock been? Enough to avenge? Enough to kill?

John knew the man _was_ fully capable of it. Sherlock had killed for less. Killed to protect, if not a physical bodily life, but a potential future full of life. Mary and his futures, or so Sherlock had thought at the time. The sleuth had sent a bullet straight into Magnusson's brain to protect John and Mary. A grand gesture that just recently Mary had all but spat upon. She had proved herself unworthy. Sherlock deserved more. He'd earned it.

John understood, now more than ever, why Sherlock had done it. He had hardly known Mary at the time. But he had claimed to love John, before witnesses, before all others in their ever widening circle of family, friends and colleagues. Had Sherlock grown to love Anthony that deeply, in so short a time? John didn't believe so. Had Sherlock been lonely? Yes, most probably. Anthony had filled the void once more. The void John had made by entering his life and filling it up with companionship, kindness, dinners, chases down darkened alleyways, take-away afterwards, laughter, even their arguments had filled a space that before had sat empty and echoing. Had filled and then drained by Sherlock fake death and John's subsequent latching onto Mary Morstan - his savior. Sherlock had had no such helper, no substitute, no partner in the dark. "Anthony...he thought...was his last... _chance?"_

"Ah...finally. You see now don't you?" Mycroft said quietly. "Yes. And Sherlock still has no idea how much you care for him. How could he?"

Correct. He had never said so to Sherlock except that one time, just before his wedding. Sherlock would have associated the remark within the boundaries of friendship which, at the time, had been the correct conclusion. Anything more had fallen by the wayside, disregarded, forgotten about, dismissed as impossible. Mere fantasy.

John had never spoken the words again. The fact of them remained silent. Sherlock was a man who required facts. Yes, how could he? John mused. I have been an idiotic, frightened sheep. "The car has stopped."

They were still at least a kilometer away. But that was still close enough to see two figures exit the car and walk away into the surrounding dark, their bodies dimming the headlights for a few seconds before disappearing from sight. _Please Sherlock, don't do it._

~!~!~

"Walk."

The moon was near full and provided enough light to see by, so there would be no tripping over stones on their way to the edge of the bluff overlooking the sea. This was a good spot. No one would hear the gun. No one nearby to interfere. He had just enough time before that second car that had followed them from all the way from Millbrook – Mycroft and John of course – to arrive and stay his intent.

Which intent was for Blythe to die by his own hand. One bullet. That wasn't too much to ask. One death for Anthony. What was one more human of questionable use gone from the world? A good thing, really. No one would miss Blythe. He was a blot on society. Blots ought to be wiped away. Trashed like used tissue.

Blythe stared back defiantly. "You're just going to shoot me? Out here? Everyone'll know you did it. You won't get away with it."

"Idiot. I don't intend to 'get away with it'. I intend to take full responsibility. He deserved no less."

Blythe's eyes were belligerent but his knees, Sherlock could see, were shaking. "I didn't mean for her to kill _him_."

Sherlock smiled. It was nothing but mocking. Somewhat enjoyable, playing with this pathetic little man who himself played at petty war games. With war came casualties. "Right, you wanted to kill me. Do you expect I would be more or _less_ annoyed about that?"

Blythe licked his lips and coughed passed the sudden dryness of his throat. "I'm sorry. About all of it. I screwed up."

"Mmm...so you admit it now; sending Mary Morstan to kill me? That she made a mistake and killed Anthony Williams instead; murdered an innocent man? You admit to kidnapping the daughter of John and Mary Watson, Elicia; frightened her, a little girl, barely out of infancy. You hurt her, you know? Your idiots left bruises and made her cry. You admit to setting all of these things in motion?"

"Yes. It was a stupid game. I wanted to hurt you. I had nothing after you killed him, Charles I mean."

"Charles Magnusson - your father?"

"Yes. He didn't like advertizing it."

"No. With such a disappointment for an offspring, who would?"

"I never meant for it to go this far."

"Fools never look passed their own clumsy feet." Sherlock raised the gun in his hand higher, aiming it steady at Blythe's head instead of his heart. There was just enough light by the moon to see him; to know the bullet, when it flew, would go perfectly between Blythe's eyes. The good irony in that. "He deserved better."

"Charles?"

" _Anthony_ you fucking idiot." The curse felt good. Warmed his heart to know Blythe was, in his terrified center, probably even agreeing with it. God, it would be good, to see Blythe's brains all over the ground, to see his body fall over like a felled tree, to watch his blood pour out onto the soil the way Anthony's had spilled onto the carpet of 221B. To finally feel something besides an aching echo in his chest again. To _know_ Anthony's killer was no more; to have _seen_ it happen; _made_ it happen...

"Sherlock..."

John's voice and it startled him. How long had he been standing there in the chilled night air contemplating pulling the trigger?

A moment too long apparently. "John, this has nothing to do with you."

"It has everything to do with me if you go to jail for the rest of your life."

"He deserves it."

"Yes he does, but you don't deserve what will come after. Be reasonable Sherlock."

Mycroft too? "You must be cold brother." Sherlock said. Mycroft hated discomfort. The cold. Rough terrain. Dark nights out in the open. Mycroft was meant, had always been meant, for warm, rich rooms with roaring fires in the grate, good food and drink at his side and his fat finger on the national pulse.

They were nothing alike.

"Yes, so let's stop all this nonsense and return to London. Let the authorities deal with Blythe."

"So he can go to jail and be fed and kept warm and given trades and hobbies to enjoy?"

"Sherlock, as you know I have a certain influence over our friends at New Scotland Yard..." Mycroft left the rest unsaid.

"The same influence you believe you have over me?" Sherlock did not take his eyes off Blythe. The two men who had just arrived, Blythe noted, did not take their eyes of Sherlock Holmes.

"Oh come now, Sherlock, are you still smarting over that?"

Over what, John could only guess. Moriarty? Or something else, darker and deeper, in the two brothers' shared history?

"Promise me Blythe will suffer for a long time. For many years. For every year he took away from Anthony's life."

"Anthony is dead Sherlock." Mycroft reminded him with a carefully neutral tone. "He is beyond any harm."

"Then for every year he took Anthony away from me –must I _spell_ it out for you? Create a new _bloody_ language?" Sherlock demanded.

Mycroft responded a little cryptically but his expression was a little sad. "Perhaps so..."

Sherlock swallowed. It felt thick in his throat. He was still so angry over Anthony. The infuriating persistent feelings for him lingered. Even now. Whenever he tried to gather them into one place and expunge them from his soul, they would slip away, playing hide and seek with his heart. It was insufferable that he should suffer in this way over a man he knew barely six weeks. Sherlock made himself speak, when he really wanted to scream. "Say...twenty-five or thirty years then. Blythe is pushing forty now, thirty years ought to do it. Turn him into a feeble old man sitting in a corner of some hideous retirement home with nothing to his name but a few brain cells left to contemplate the uselessness that he will have made of his existence."

Mycroft sighed. "That will satisfy you?"

"Or I could kill him. Save him the miserable-ness of his pathetic self, save the Kingdom the bother and expense of keeping him alive."

"Sherlock..."

It was John now speaking. Good, fine John who wanted even bad people to be spared any punishment too harsh. "He deserves it John. He will hurt someone else." _All he has ever done is hurt others. It's all he'll ever do._

"Not if he's locked away. Mycroft promised. He'll see to it, won't you Mycroft?"

Sherlock smiled. "I'm not convinced your promises can be trusted Mycroft. Make it a Mummy promise and I'll think about it."

Sherlock heard a heavy sigh and a shifting of feet. He'd succeeded in making his insufferable older brother uncomfortable. It was like a breath of fresh air. "Yes I made an error with Moriarty. I had to roll the dice with him. We were left no choice."

Sherlock merely stared back, his expression smugly patient while his brother tapped his stupid umbrella on the floor.

"A _Mummy_ promise?" Mycroft asked as though it were the most ridiculous thing ever conceived.

Sherlock casually examined his nails. "Did I stutter?" He looked at John. " _Did_ I stutter John?"

John grinned, entertained. "No, Sherlock, no you didn't." They both looked at Mycroft, waiting.

Mycroft narrowed his eyes and John recognised it as one he'd seen Sherlock perform on numerous occasions. It was he now realised quintessentially a Holmes-ian display. "Sherlock, we are not children anymore."

"Make it a Mummy promise, and don't forget to cross yourself either, and I'll give John the gun."

John glared at Mycroft when it appeared that - even in the indistinct light of the moon - the man wasn't going to comply. "Bloody swallow that gigantic ego and _do_ it." John whispered, although Sherlock could clearly hear the exchange.

Mycroft stood straighter, hooked his umbrella over his left forearm, crossed himself with his right hand and said "I promise by Mummy I'll do it as we've agreed."

Sherlock took a deep breath and lowered his arm, which muscles had begun to burn with the effort of keeping his arm straight and stiff, the weapon pointed unwaveringly at Blythe's skull. "John?"

John stepped up and very carefully took the gun from Sherlock's hand, checking it. "Fully loaded," He informed Mycroft, "And the safety was off."

Sherlock looked at his friend, crooking up one corner of his lip. "Did you think I wasn't serious?"

John stared back at him. "Not for a second. But take it from one who understands the temptations of revenge, it's not worth it. Especially not over a twat like Blythe."

Sherlock nodded. Then he reached into his Belstaff's right pocket and pulled out his phone, hitting a button on the lit-up screen then handing it to Mycroft. "Here - Blythe's recorded full confession. I imagine this ought to assist the Yard with their case against him."

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. "So you really weren't going to kill him."

"If he _hadn't_ confessed..." Sherlock began to say and then changed his mind, turning and walking back to where Mycroft's sleek vehicle waited, quietly idling nearby. He climbed in, seeming content to let John and Mycroft deal with Blythe for the rest of the return journey.

When Sherlock was out of hearing range, John nodded to the elder Holmes. "We'll tie him up and _I'll_ drive Blythe back in his own car. You stay with Sherlock." And then, out of pure curiosity, he asked. "You've never stared into a killer's eyes before have you?" By Mycroft's answering expression John knew that he was correct. The elder Holmes had not experienced such a situation. Not one so very _personal_. No, because Mycroft hated foot-work. He sent others to confront killers.

Sherlock went himself. Went _alone_.

John made a vow to put a stop to the second part. "Thought not. Not when it's just a one-on-one situation anyway, you and a killer; just you and someone who hates you so much he wants to take your life. I saw it in his eyes Mycroft. Believe me, if Blythe hadn't confessed, Sherlock would have shot him." John rubbed away the exhaustion from his eyes if not his body. "And you were right. _I_ think I made him this way." John said.

With that first act. _I shot a man I'd never met through a window to save another man I'd just met and barely knew at all. I was a killer first and set the standard for our future together._ Maybe it wasn't too late to show Sherlock another side of partnership. Another way of togetherness. _Where we don't have to be embroiled in death for our lives to mean something._ "So let me try and fix it now."

"I shall hold you to that, Doctor Watson." Mycroft said, still managing to sound haughty as hell.

 _Two brothers_ , John thought, _so alike_. How _much_ alike scared him sometimes.

Together they trussed up a protesting Blythe and John shoved him into the rear seat of the car, hooking the seat belt around him in such a way as he could not lean forward or cause any more trouble during the long drive back to London. Blythe continued to whine as John closed the door. "Shut-up or I'll gag you too." John shook his head. The man really was a tit.

John stared at Mycroft for a few seconds, wanting to say so much and not much of it flattering despite Mycroft's invaluable assistance, but choosing only "Go and sit with Sherlock. And be _nice_ to him. Act like a _brother_ for once in your life."

~!~!~

Part 10 asap


	10. Chapter 10

" **And When I Say 'Friend'..." Part 10**

By GE Waldo

 **Rating** : Mature but with some humour. Also murders n' stuff.

 **Pairing** : John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC and eventually Johnlock.

 **Summary** : John's new life makes him long for his old and Sherlock's new beau makes John just...jealous! Takes place in a possible future universe after John and Mary's baby has arrived.

 **Disclaimer** : Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.

~!~!~!~!~!~!~

The funeral music I chose as a nod to David Bowie who's passing January 10th was a shock to me, and a sorrow because I grew up with his music and loving every note of it! So goodbye my dear David and flights of angels...

When John pulled Blythe's car to the Kerb in front of New Scotland Yard, it was after seven in the morning. Traffic choked the streets, and crowds of people walked in a hurry to their respective jobs. John just felt like sleeping for two days straight. But there were things to do first.

Mycroft had, evidently by the two uniformed policeman who were waiting on the sidewalk just a few feet in from the road, called ahead. John explained who they all were and that DI Lestrade was expecting them, and then handed Blythe over. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

John walked up to Mycroft's car and climbed in, instructing the driver "The nearest hospital please."

Sherlock looked at him and sighed heavily but John cut off any words that he knew were sitting on the tip of Sherlock's tongue. "You're not 'fine', so don't bloody argue with me, Sherlock. Not when I'm this tired and pissed off. You're getting X-Rays and that's that."

At the word X-Ray Mycroft raked his eyes over his younger brother, then sat back, apparently satisfied with what Sherlock's stiff posture and gray-skinned face revealed to him. "Your instinct for self-preservation is appalling brother."

To which Sherlock answered succinctly - "Sod off."

"Charming as always," Mycroft said, his lips a find line of weary disapproval. "You should be grateful you have others to look out for you; you're dreadfully poor at it."

Sherlock sat back, trying to ease his more steadily aching body into the butter soft leather cushion seat. "I'm fine," he muttered, "This is ridiculous."

John rubbed at red-rimmed eyes with shaking fingers. "Not another word, Sherlock."

Sherlock set his jaw but said nothing more.

After enduring the probing fingers of a nurse and then another faceless A&E doctor, Sherlock –with John's practised assistance - slipped his torso, bound in layered bandages, into his shirt, then his jacket and finally his warm coat once more. His side ached terribly and the many steps out onto the damp street left him dizzy. Perhaps a trip to A&E, as annoying as it had proved, had been a sound idea. Grudgingly he sighed.

"Come on," John said softly, "let's go home."

To Baker Street. _Home_ it was, once more, to John. _Their_ home. Sherlock silently thrilled at the sound of it, tired as he was and then felt a bit miffed at himself for giving into the sentiment. And then was miffed all over again because, as injured as he was, giving in felt like a defeat; a failure. It made no sense. But emotions hardly ever made sense.

He was tired. That's all it was. Just that. Nothing else.

But the adage 'sleep for a week' for once seemed plausible. Though, as uncharacteristic as it was, he was disinclined to let this elusive feeling of contentment go just yet. "Can we stop first?"

John had already hailed a cab and Sherlock had let him. So early in the morning, they were plentiful. "Where?"

"I'm hungry and we've nothing in."

John, ever practical, took out his phone. "We'll order take-away. By the time we're home, it'll be there."

Sherlock nodded. That was John, a man who combined the care of a doctor with the efficiency of a military captain. _His_ John. "Thank you." Which remark seemed to give his friend pause.

John blinked at him and Sherlock bristled. "You needn't looked so shocked. I _do_ know how to say 'thank you'."

John nodded. His eyes sparkled with triumphant but his look was fond. "I know."

The food, unfortunately, turned his stomach once he had settled on his couch and the smell of Tandori chicken and curry potatoes hit his nostrils. John made him eat a small bowl of it though. "You've got strong anti-inflammatory and pain medication in you and you need something in your stomach." Once the food has been left to digest for ten minutes chased by a few ounces of water, John urged him into his bedroom and helped him remove his coat and suit jacket. His shirt, ruined at the hospital by the nurse's efficient scissors, had been binned.

"Christ..." John whispered at the livid bruises smudging well beyond the straight line of the bandages over his cracked ribs. "Franks' arseholes did a number on you." His brow was creased in anger. Sherlock indulged in the words, and in John's gentle physician's hands on him, a rare event during their friendship and one he had sorely missed during his time away, and during John's hasty, ill-fated marriage.

John's hands warmed him, inside as well as outside, just as they had always done.

The food had been good but Sherlock had little appetite now that the pills had taken root in his system and even less now that John had made him eat some of it. The nausea was raging.

"Come on," John took his forearm and urged him to sit on the edge of the bed. "You need to sleep, you're white as a sh –it! Now you're _green_ , to the toilet."

John hustled him the short distance from his bedroom to the bathroom and it was none too soon and Sherlock slumped over the bowl emptying his stomach into it. John winced at the number of times Sherlock had to repeat the purge. "You must have nothing left in you by now."

Sherlock sat on the floor, noting that John had, at some point that week, scrubbed the floor and tub. His trousers would be spared at least. John smiled ruefully at Sherlock's sweaty brow. "You look terrible."

Rolling his eyes was a mistake as that only intensified the dizziness. "Kind of you to say so." He tried to snarl but it failed, the words dribbling out between slack lips. He spit once more into the bowl, grimaced at the taste, and then added - "I'll be fine."

"'Course you will." John said a bit wearily. "You're always 'fine'." Exasperated now.

Sherlock blinked. Perhaps it was the fatigue or the pills or the remaining bits of food gurgling into an acid stew in his stomach but a surge of remorse arose in him and the keen urgency to convey that he wasn't the soulless android he often made himself out to be. "Not always, John," Sherlock said, a slight slur touching the words. He could feel sleep calling to him from the depths of his comfortable bed down the hall. "I'm not always fine you know."

"No shit?" John snapped and then sighed, a deep, cleansing breath of resigned air. "I know."

John squatted down in front of his friend who propped up against the bathtub, limbs all askew angles. John looked at him, right into his eyes.

Startled pout of his nausea-induced stupor, Sherlock stared back, waiting as John's tropical lake-blue eyes; deep and fathomless – _so familiar and yet so difficult to really_ know - stared unblinking back into his own crystalline barely-there, cool Tiffany rain-drops on a window-pane.

Two shades of the same person. That's who they were; heat and ice, warm and cold, fire and freeze. There was nothing scientific about it. Nothing rational either. And nothing logical but...they _worked_. Always had, right from the beginning. From the first day - the first _hour_. It both intrigued and irritated Sherlock. A thing he couldn't sort out. They balanced each other perfectly. How had this small man, this soldier-doctor-kind-brave-wise-loving small, non-descript man; this man who fooled everybody into believing he was nothing much, come to make up everything in Sherlock's world that he believed was worth preserving? Worth dying for? How had this happened? The world doesn't _work_ like this.

"I know who you are Sherlock," John answered. He stared one moment more ands then, without any more hesitancy, kissed his friend once, quickly, gently, almost chastely, on the lips. "I know what you are." John cleared his throat and turned to more practical matters."Do you want a bath?"

Sherlock, quietly stunned, could not think of a single thing to say but to shake his head.

"The nausea?"

Sherlock nodded again, a series of tiny head bobs, the nausea a threat with every movement.

"Okay. Then to bed and no dispute." John had turned into _Doctor_ John with whom one did not argue. But even Sherlock knew when it was time to give in to his body's demand for rest and recuperation.

John was here, after all.

Sherlock also knew not to demand any more from the stingy universe than that single concession.

So it was all fine.

Sherlock checked his image in the bathroom mirror. His left cheek still sported a bruise, though his bodies' genetically vigorous healing properties colouring it over to more yellow rather than blue and his eye on that side still had a fading half moon of grey beneath it, but, all in all, he looked fine. Back to his usual appearance.

Older. Now. That morning he had felt shocked to discover a few grey hairs mixed in with his usual raven locks. Just a few grey, nothing to be concerned about. Yet. Still his face had few wrinkled. A smattering of crows' feet at the corners of his eyes when he smiled – a rare event thank god! Yes, he looked good, in the abstract. Still attractive, though, he thought. Still standing on only the _sprouting_ side of middle-age.

Anthony would have been forty-four next week. Sherlock had checked his wallet one evening when Anthony had excused himself to the 'loo.

Sherlock had not allowed his thoughts to drift to Anthony these last two days of John's insistent bed-rest. A deep breath proved not too uncomfortable, although his still-wrapped ribs were still several weeks away from mended.

Sherlock checked his - for lack of a better descriptive – _feelings_ about Anthony. The former living ache inside had eased. No small relief.

"Sherlock? Are you ready? We'll be late."

Sherlock rolled his eyes a bit and straightened his spine, leaving the bathroom for the sitting room. "Anthony won't be _going_ anywhere John."

John threw him a disapproving frown. "Still, it's not on to be late for a funeral."

"It's a memorial service."

"Memorial service then."

"Boys!" Martha Hudson's voice called from the main floor foyer. "The car is here. Hurry up. It wouldn't be proper form to be late Sherlock."

A tiny line appeared between Sherlock's brows. "Why does she assume it's _me_ who's being tardy?"

John smiled when, appearing to read the sleuth's mind, she answered from below - "It's _always_ you, Sherlock. Now be a dear, and hurry up."

Sherlock stood respectfully between John and Mycroft (and why was _he_ here anyway?), with Martha taking the spot near Mycroft, beside her two Holmes boys, a small hanky clutched in her hand. No tears. The ceremony was simple. But it was a Catholic priest officiating and Sherlock frowned all the way through.

"Why did you hire _him_?" He whispered to Mycroft fiercely. A soft drone of instrumental music wound its way through the little hall.

"Because Anthony was _Catholic_ Sherlock." He whispered backed blithely with one ginger eyebrow on the rise. _Obvious_ it said.

The soft background refrains reached his ears. "And what is that you've chosen?"

 _We passed upon the stair/We spoke of was and when/Although I wasn't there/He said I was his friend/Which came as some surprise/I spoke into his eyes/"I thought you'd died alone/A long, long time ago..."_

Sherlock started. "Is that -?"

"Yes," Mycroft answered softly. "Anthony was quite fond of this composer."

Sherlock swallowed. He hadn't known. There was much about Anthony that he hadn't known. But to dispel the discomfort forming in his chest he scowled at Mycroft, opening his mouth to voice his opinion on Mycroft's musical choice until Martha's own stern look made him close his mouth and turn his attention back to the proceedings. _Dull._

Except for the music. That wasn't dull. It was interesting. And because Anthony had liked it Sherlock decided he would listen to the boring priest while the unusual music played a strange, haunting refrain in the background.

The priest droned on and on about God and Heaven Forgiveness and Rewards and Ashes until Sherlock could feel his clenched teeth splintering.

Finally, it was over and the priest withdrew to allow the small gathering of mourners a few moments of privacy with the urn. To which announcement Sherlock let out an audible and thoroughly disdainful snort. "Why would anyone need to sit with an urn?" He scoffed.

John took up Sherlock left hand with his right and held on. "Sherlock..."

Sherlock stared down at his own hand in John's, surprised and a tad stunned to momentary silence by it, but it was enough to alter his next words. "It just makes no sense, John," he argued quietly. "Anthony's not even here."

John, with a mysterious little smile on his face, looked at his friend, patting Sherlock's hand with his free one. "I think that's the _point_."

Sherlock conceded to the religious atmosphere. Still one had to be oneself - "I think it's silly, that's all."

"I'm sure Anthony knew that Sherlock." John whispered, "But he loved you anyway."

 _That_ stilled his tongue. It was a difficult thing to accept. Always had been. His parents loved him, but parents almost always do love their children. Sherlock looked over to where Mycroft was pouring out tea for Mrs. Hudson at the tastefully subdued tea and Afters table.

" _And_ Martha ..." John said.

Sherlock glanced at his friend standing beside him. John had not read his mind of course. The conclusion had been obvious - even for _John_. Sherlock made himself _not_ look at Mycroft.

" _And_ Mycroft," John added, that small smile appearing below his nose again. It was beginning to annoy Sherlock, as though John was in on some conspiracy that he didn't know about; one designed to make a fool of him, if he knew John capable of such an intrigue, _or_ such a cruelty, either of which he was emphatically _not._

The vision of Moriarty bargaining his way out of his brother's devil hands crossed Sherlock's thoughts.

"He regrets it, you know." John said.

"Stop it." Sherlock whispered back. He was beginning to feel exposed and uncomfortable in this room dripping with candle wax and religious icons. And _feelings_.

John did not release his hand. "I think Mycroft would stop the world from turning if he thought it would bring you happiness."

Sherlock wanted to scoff at that but nothing came out when he opened his mouth because John was raising Sherlock's captive hand toward his lips. Sherlock stared in utter disbelief when john's lips met the thin skin on the back of Sherlock's hand for the briefest of moments. Then John cleared his throat."And, of course, er – _I_ do."

His hand was let go and Sherlock felt the cooler air of the room move in to replace and chill the parts where the contact from John's flesh had warmed them.

Sherlock looked at his hand, then John, then his own shoes, and tucked both hands behind his back because suddenly he had no idea what to do with them. When he was certain his voice would work without cracking he said "I...yes...I...I know." And after a moment, in case that had not been clear. "Yes."

It was as close as had ever come to saying the words. Words he had not said to Anthony. Perhaps he was not _supposed_ to have said them? Perhaps Anthony had been his guide? And then dismissed such an idea as silly romantic sentiment.

Which did not make the sentiment any less true of course. " _Yes_ John..."

Sherlock could feel John's fingers reach out for his, and grasp them once more, linking their hands together, and on his friend's thin lips that same little mysterious smile appeared once more.

Sherlock could not help but look down at their joined fingers, linked together. More than friendship. Much more, as they had always been. Previously un-acknowledged, un-said, un- _thought_ , but now it did not feel so. Not anymore. Now it felt comfortable. It was...good. Correct even. They fit together. It felt...nice.

At the funeral of one lover he had discovered another. Sherlock decided not to question it but to, instead, just let it be. Not everything needs deducing, quantifying, explaining, as John had often said _ad-nauseam_ over the years of their friendship. Some things just... _are_. It was stupid sentiment but he supposed he could live with it just this once. Sherlock gripped John's hand in return.

Perhaps John's smile was not so mysterious after all.

Blythe's swift conviction and even swifter incarceration in one of England's harshest maximum prisons came and went in the news. John spent those few days in and around Baker Street with Sherlock, looking through old case files and drinking tea, ordering take-away and – at least _John_ doing so anyway– moving furniture around in his upstairs bedroom and accepting packages delivered at all hours of the day and evening until finally Sherlock found himself shouting up the stairs to explain all the noise.

John came down, dust on his clothes. "Well, I've got to make the room presentable, don't I?"

Sherlock frowned as though a mystery, a highly irritating one, had been foisted upon him once more. He was growing _tired_ of those. There must be no more mysteries in which he was not involved. It was irritating! "Presentable? What are you talking about? Presentable for whom?"

A knock at the door took John's attention away and he bounded down the stairs. Sherlock heard the door open and a woman's voice and John responding in turn and shuffling of feet. It was all very frustrating that John was keeping him in the dark like this.

Finally Sherlock retreated to his chair, determined to ignore John for the remainder of the day.

Until a sound fell across his ears. A small voice, high pitched, babbling something incomprehensible. He turned to see, just so he would no longer be in the dark, otherwise he decided he would not care one _whit_ about it!

John held in his arms his daughter. "Say hello to Uncle Sherlock Elicia."

The tiny blonde haired girl sucked on her fingers and stared with wide blue eyes at the dark haired, tall figure that stood and walked over, cautiously, not _too_ close. "Of course..." Sherlock felt rather foolish - a rare enough event. But in all the turmoil over Anthony's death and the capture of Blythe, and the funeral and he and John's fresh sexual relationship (although they hadn't actually _done_ anything yet except a few chaste kisses; a situation that was beginning to make Sherlock inexplicably restless!) he had forgotten about _The Child_. "Er...hello Elicia." Sherlock frowned at himself. _Babies Elicia's age don't talk you idiot!_

John looked so pleased he was actually beaming. Without warning or ceremony he thrust her into Sherlock's arms. "Hold her for a minute will you; I have to use the 'Loo, and then get all this stuff to her room."

Sherlock stared, horrified, down at the little thing in his arms. "John...John...no, I can't possible...I don't know how...wait!"

"Don't be nervous." John called back but to Sherlock's terror, did not turn back around.

"I'm not _nervous_. But how do I -"

"She's a _baby_ , Sherlock, not an alien. Just talk to her. She won't bite."

He gaped at the thing in his arms. "But babies her age don't _talk_ John!"

Sherlock made his heart slow down and gather his wits, at least somewhat and he looked down into those wide, wondering eyes that stared up at him like _he_ was the alien. She was just a baby. No problem. How much trouble could a baby be?

Sherlock stared into her sky-blue eyes that stared back, seemingly astounded him. He supposed he could not blame her for staring so rudely, as she was meeting _Sherlock Holmes_ after all.

Her eyes were remarkably beautiful. Quite intelligent looking in fact. But looks have nothing to do with intelligence, he reminded himself. Still, she was a lovely child, esthetically speaking. And she wasn't crying, so that was something at least. He smelled something. "John, I think her diaper is..." Just as visions of baby-soiled nappies sitting between his best suit and Elicia's bottom began to swirl in his head, John scooped her from his arms again and took her to the couch, seating himself and laying her down on the paper-littered coffee-table. "She needs changing." He explained, pulling a diaper from a colourful plastic lined bag and, with expert hands, removed the soiled diaper, folding it upon in itself to hide its contents.

Were the child's feces _yellow_? – Sherlock frowned. Surely that was not normal.

But John did not appear alarmed by the odd colour of his daughter's bowel movements and by the time he thought to ask, John had already cleaned her delicate skin with wet wipes, applied powder and was wrapping her up in a new diaper, snugging it up on her ridiculously fragile form with built-in tape. John then spent a moment closing all the little "snaps" on the garment he had once referred to as 'a Onesie'.

Sherlock sniffed. "My nose told me that."

John looked at him. "Hmm? Told you what?"

Sherlock thrust his hands into his trouser pockets, simply because he could think of no use for them in the present situation. "That she had...soiled her diaper."

John grinned. "Plenty of more where that came from."

Sherlock froze. Right. If John was to live here, then for certain Elicia would be too. "I see." Sherlock suddenly felt out-of-sorts, and he didn't exactly know why but something must have shown on his face because John suddenly looked worried himself. "This is all right isn't it Sherlock? I mean, if you want me to live here – and _I_ certainly want to, then Elicia...she's my daughter. I mean _she_ has to live here too. Is that okay with you, because I can find another flat if you aren't comfortable having a baby around."

"No, no, it's fine. Perfectly fine. It's good, it's sound, yes, just fine...er good, yes..."

John sat Elicia down on the threadbare carpet so she could spend a moment examining her socked feet and stood up. He walked over to Sherlock, who appeared stuck in place like a stick in the mud. "Sherlock...I want this. But Elicia will need her own room so I thought my old room, upstairs, would be fine for her. I have a baby monitor and everything."

"Oh." Sherlock said softly. That means of course that they'll be sharing his room.

John must have read something on Sherlock's face because he looked worried. "That's all right isn't it? I mean, if we're going to do this...?"

"Um, yes...that's...okay...yes...of course...naturally." He swallowed thickly and then glanced down at his shoes and then up at his flat-mate.

"I mean, if this might be something you want too." John licked his lips. "We can go slowly, you know. As slowly as you need us to. I'm in no hurry because, well, I'm...not...I don't _want_ to go anywhere."

Sherlock felt a flood of relief. He could get used to sharing a room. It might be quite...nice. He's always slept alone but a warm body beside him at night? That might be...good.

And a baby he _supposed_ he could get used to. "I don't want you to go anywhere either." Sherlock could not help the nervous glance over to where Elicia had gotten bored with her fuzzy toes and begun to crawl over to his desk where beside it on the floor he had some very important papers piled. " _John_...!?"

John retrieved Elicia and found some toys for her by rummaging around in a diaper bag. "Relax Sherlock; she'll keep occupied with these for a few. How about some lunch? I'm starving."

Sherlock stared at Elicia's toys. A pathetic collection of a small much chewed-on elephant, a book made of plastic which four pages crinkled when she touched it and a soother stuck on the end of what appeared to be a furry pink worm!

Sherlock excused himself to his bedroom and returned swiftly, plunking down on the floor in front of the child a furry bumble-bee about a foot long whose wings detached and which antenna were made of springs covered in felt. "There," He said triumphantly. And while John stared at him with nothing less than amused shock, he explained with dignity "Well, we can't have her playing with toys that teach her nothing." He waved a disdainful hand at the other toys he had shoved aside, "those are mere chew items. This is an educational toy."

John covered his smile, seemingly quite amused at the bumble bee's very existence.

The frown line appeared between Sherlock's brows again at his flatmate's odd behavior.

"Umph..." John gathered himself together and cupped his jaw, then moving his hand up to cover his mouth, speaking through his fingers and folding his other arm across his chest. In a failed attempt at a more serious question he, for a reason Sherlock could not deduce, stammered - "Ah...hah...um...when did you - *cough* - buy this Sherlock?"

The sleuth looked out the window at the grey day and waved his hand around again as though at a pesky fly "Oh, a while back, before Anthony's...before Anthony...it's not important. I don't remember."

"I see, well..." John was suddenly at his side and was turning him around, and then wrapping his arms around Sherlock's waist, tightly. "That was a very nice Sherlock. Thank you." He reached up, it was a bit of a stretch to kiss the taller git, and kissed him soundly on the mouth.

Sherlock stared down at his new...lover? "It was nothing." he said, a sudden wave of _shyness_ for god's sake was overwhelming him, and his knees felt a bit wobbly.

John kissed him again. "You're wrong Sherlock." And before Sherlock could protest this completely inaccurate statement, John kissed him again, "It's _every_ thing."

END.

They may be a sequel to this story.


	11. COMMENT on 'And When I Say Friend'

Comment

A few readers noticed a few "non-English" words in this fic', which I have gone in and corrected, because – WOW – some decided the whole thing was "ruined" by two "non-English" words. It's only my humble opinion of course but technically it's all English. What I think he/she meant was "British", so there you go – it's been British-iSed. I happen to adore British English as well as my own Canadian English (which is a bit of a mash between the American and British with a few CanadianiSed words through-out), so if any more "errors" are noticed, do not hesitate to let me know and I will correct them. Thanks all!


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